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EVOLUTIO 





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Popular Lectures and Discussions 

before the 

Brooklyn Ethical Association. 



• i 



BOSTON : 
JAMES H. WEST, Publisher 

192 Summer Street 
1889 



94940 



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*»*. Ofiloe Lib, 
April IBM 



< c < c < Copyright, 1889, 
( c t As r ^DIVIDUAL lectures. 

See foot-note f^rst page of each essay. 



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•PREFACE. / 

" * +* 

Evolution : The word is in eve.ey_jrAouth. A vague, often an 
incorrect conception of its meaning in the field of biology and 
with, reference to the origin of Man, has reached the popular mind, 
and stirred it to further investigation and inquiry. Even in its 
biological aspects, the doctrine of Evolution is seen to touch the 
great problems of religion and philosophy — of origin and destiny. 
But it is beginning to be understood that not alone as an explana- 
tion of the method whereby living forms have been produced and 
developed is this doctrine alive with human interest and pregnant 
with important influences upon human thought and human wel- 
fare. Evolution, reaching backward, takes hold upon the great 
cosmic problems of the birth and growth of worlds, the nature of 
Matter and Spirit, the relation of the phenomenal Universe to its 
efficient Cause. Reaching forward, it touches and illuminates the 
pressing problems of ethics and sociology, offering to the careful 
student wise instruction for his guidance in all the practical 
affairs of life. 

Evolution, it is said, is not a philosophy, it is not a religion — 
"it is only a method." But it is a universal method ; the discov- 
ery and formulation of its law as applied to all the processes of in- 
organic, organic, social and intellectual development, constitutes 
the widest generalization of science. It cannot be otherwise, 
therefore, than that its acceptance should necessitate a reconsid- 
eration of the fundamental problems of philosophy and religion, 
-as well as a reconstruction of our notions in regard to the perma- 
nence of species and the origin of human life. As tersely defined 
by Professor Le Conte, "Evolution is continuous, progressive 
change, according to certain laws, and by means of resident forces." 
In the place of miracle it posits law ; instead of creation ex nihilo, 
it affirms an orderly development resulting from the action of eter- 
nally-existent forces ; for the old conception of a mechanical uni- 
verse set in motion by a non-resident Creator, it substitutes that 
■of a vital universe, the "resident forces" of which are symbols of 
a Power that is at once immanent and transcendent, — revealed in 
all its relations to our human consciousness, but by the very 

(iii) 



iv Preface. 

nature of that consciousness forever unknown in its ultimate 
essence. 

Universal in its scope, penetrating every region of thought and 
life, it appeared to the managers of the Brooklyn Ethical Associa- 
tion Lectures that no work could he of more general and vital in- 
terest than that of popularizing correct views of the Evolution 
philosophy. An advance copy of our programme sent to Mr. Her- 
bert Spencer, elicited from him a letter of cordial commendation,* 
in which he affirmed that "The mode of presentation described 
seems to me admirably adapted for popularizing evolution views," 
and expressed a hope that the lectures might be widely circulated 
in printed form. Efforts in this direction were subsequently un- 
dertaken. The preparation of these lectures has been a labor of 
love, and for the most part gratuitous on the part of their authors. 
As separately published, they have already been profitably used 
by numerous societies and individuals engaged in this study, and 
it is hoped that they may have a yet wider circulation in the form 
in which they are now offered to the public. The chief hope and 
desire of the Ethical Association, and of the authors of these lec- 
tures, will not be met, however, unless they stimulate thought be- 
yond their mere perusal, and prepare many minds for the sys- 
tematic reading of the more complete expositions of the Evolution 
philosophy in the works of Spencer, Fiske, Darwin, Haeckel, Wal- 
lace, Huxley, Tyndall, Cope, and other recognized authorities. 
Not merely to satisfy, but to create hunger for truth is the object 
of these lectures. The subject is too vast to be treated completely 
in a single volume. We are aware of imperfections — yet we trust 
that the lectures will serve the purpose for which they are intended , 
and thus justify the labor and devotion of those who have par- 
ticipated in their production and publication. 

* Printed in full on page 19. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

'Preface, iii 



Herbert Spencer, . 3 

His life and personal characteristics ; his views on ed- 
ucation ; his religious opinions ; his earlier writings ; 
the relation of his work to Darwinism and the evolu- 
tion philosophy. 

By Daniel, Geeenleaf Thompson. 

Charles Eobert Darwin, 25 

His ancestry, life, and personal characteristics ; the 
voyage of the Beagle ; discovery of natural selection ; 
the two factors of the Darwinian theory ; Darwin and 
Wallace ; Louis Agassiz and evolution ; influence of 
Darwin' s studies on his religious opinions. Evolution 
before Darwin ; views of Goethe* and Lamarck. 

By Rev. John W. Chadwick. 

Solar and Planetary Evolution, 55 

How suns and worlds come into being ; the nebular 
hypothesis of Laplace and Faye ; Creation or Evolu- 
tion ? Did the material universe ever have a begin- 
ning ? 

By Garrett P. Serviss. 

Evolution of the Earth, 79 

The story of geology ; how the world grew ; the order 
of stratification ; the action of fire and water ; prep- 
aration of the earth for vegetable and animal life. 

By Dr. Lewis G. Janes. 

Evolution of Vegetal Life, Ill 

How does life begin ? The problem of spontaneous 
generation ; morphology — the forms of leaves and 
flowers ; the geographical distribution of plants ; 
methods of fertilization ; distinctions and likenesses 
between plants and animals. 

By William Potts. 
(v) 



vi Contents. 

Evolution of Animal Life, 139 

The evidences from geology, geographical distribution 
and comparative zoology ; the problem of special 
creation ; the laws of evolution ; Darwinism as mod- 
ified by Komanes ; the mutability of species ; the 
order of zoological evolution. 

By Rossiter W. Raymond,P1i.D. 

The Descent of Man, 161 

Relation of man to the brute creation ; his ancestral 
line ; duration of human life on the planet ; growth 
of mind, reason, and the moral sense ; consciousness 
as a factor in human evolution. 

By Edward D. Cope,P1i.D. 

Evolution of Mind, 179 

The mind and the nervous system ; the nature of mind ; 
correspondence of life and mind ; the growth of con- 
sciousness ; nature and evolution of intelligence ; 
instinct, memory, reason, feelings, will. 

By Dr. Robert G. Eccles. 

Evolution of Society, 208 

Primitive man ; growth of the family, tribe, city and 
State ; development of the domestic relations ; mar- 
riage ; ceremonial and political institutions ; is soci- 
ety an organism ? 

By James A. Skilton. 

Evolution of Theology, 233 

Origin of religious beliefs ; ideas of primitive man ; 
animism, and ancestor-worship ; growth of nature- 
worship and idolatry ; polytheism, monotheism and 
pantheism ; the doctrine of the Absolute. 

By Z. Sidney Sampson. 

Evolution of Morals, . 257 

How altruism grows out of egoism ; the proper balance ; 
characteristics and relative value of ethical systems ; 
utilitarianism, rational and empirical ; influence of 
the evolutionary theory of morals on ethical sanctions. 

By Dr. Lewis G. Janes. 

Proofs of Evolution, 287 

a, from geology ; b, from morphology ; c, from embry- 
ology ; d, from metamorphosis ; e, from rudimentary 



Contents. vii 

organs ; f, from geographical distribution ; g, from 
discovered links ; h, from artificial breeding ; i, from 
reversion ; k, from mimicry. 

By Nelson C. Pakshall. 

Evolution as Related to Religious Thought, . 319 

The doctrine of the unknowable ; special creation as 
related to Darwinism ; Spencer's reconciliation of 
religion and science ; the doctrine of design ; law and 
miracle. 

By Bev. John W. Chadwick. 

The Philosophy of Evolution, 343 

Belation of the doctrine to prevailing philosophical 
systems ; metaphysics and the scientific method ; 
materialism and the evolution philosophy ; realism 
and idealism ; beneficent results of the prevalence of 
materialism on human progress. 

By Stake H. Nichols. 

The Effects of Evolution on the Coming Civ- 
ilization, 369 

Plans for social regeneration as tested by evolution ; 
Communism, Nationalism, and Socialism ; probable 
influence of the evolution philosophy in the settle- 
ment of social and economic problems. 

By Rev. Minot J. Savage. 

Index, 393 



The eye reads omens where it goes, 
And speaks all languages the rose ; 
And, striving to be man, the worm 
Mounts through all the spires of form. 

— Nature, i., 7. 

The fossil strata show us that Nature began with rudimental forms, and rose 
to the more complex as fast as the earth was fit for their dwelling-place ; and 
that the lower perish as the higher appear. Very few of our race can be said to 
be yet finished men. We still carry sticking to us some remains of the preced- 
ing inferior quadruped organization. . . The age of the quadruped is to go out, 
— the age of the brain and of the heart is to come in. And if one shall read the 
future of the race hinted in the organic effort of Nature to mount and melior- 
ate, and the corresponding impulse to the Better in the human being, we shall 
dare affirm that there is nothing he will not overcome and convert, until at last 
culture shall absorb the chaos and gehenna. He will convert the Furies into 
Muses and the hells into benefit. — Culture. 

— Ralph Waldo Emekson. 



HERBERT SPENCER 



BY 

DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON 

Author of "A System of Psychology," "The Problem of Evil," "The. 
Religious Sentiments of the Human Mind," Etc. 



COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED 

IN CONNECTION WITH ESSAY I. 

Biographical Sketch of Herbert Spencer, by Professor E. L. 
Youmans (in Popular Science Monthly, March, 1876) ; Essays on 
Spencer, in Popular Science Monthly, November, 1874, and North 
American Review, October, 1879, by Prof essor Youmans ; Spencer' 1 s 
Reconciliation of Religion and Science, by Professor Youmans (in 
Christian Examiner, May, 1862); Spencer's Education, Study of So- 
ciology, Essays, and Recent Discussions. 



HERBERT SPENCER. 



As the world grows older it knows more about its great- 
est men and finds them out quicker ; but in order to be no- 
ticed it is necessary for them to be greater than in former 
times. The idea that men of long ago were of superior 
mould and larger intellectual stature than those of to-day 
is a false one, though useful, no doubt, to sustain the doc- 
trine of a lapse from an originally perfect state. Those 
sentiments which have given rise to and supported the 
theory of monarchical sovereignty made demigods of mil- 
itary chieftains, of kings and emperors, and endowed them,, 
in the minds of people generally, with all the virtues which 
they did not possess but which seemed to be necessary to a 
properly equipped great man. The same method has per- 
vaded the world of study and of letters. Plato and Aris- 
totle have been esteemed much greater men than any of our 
degenerate times, and there has been, and still is, a mysti- 
cal value attached to their least words. 

Without disparaging these really worthy Greeks, who 
would be considered good philosophers, as philosophers go 
in our time, and who, it must be remembered, were far bet- 
ter than they used to run in earlier days, I do not hesitate 
to aver that the subject of this sketch, for instance, is much 
greater than either of them. Nor would I say it of him 
alone, but also of many others, who are not as prominent. 
The general level of intellectual power is so far raised in 
modern times that it is exceedingly difficult for any one 
man to become pre-eminent among his fellows. His lim- 
itations are more accurately measured, his weaknesses are 
detected, and he has none of the divine halo about his head 
that used to awe people into adoration and out of criticism. 
Believe me, the modern way is the best. These are more 
fortunate times, when we see Carlyle's " Great Man " cer- 
tainly disappearing from the earth and soon to share the- 
fate of the mastodon and the mammoth. True greatness 

* Copyright, by D. G. Thompson, 1888. 



4 Herbert Spencer. 

will be a natural, not a supernatural, greatness. Those be- 
low will be raised up, and the model man of the future will 
be he who walks modestly among his fellows, claiming 
nothing and needing to claim nothing, because his intellect, 
his character, his deeds shine in their true light, neither ob- 
scured nor artificially heightened. And of such there will 
be many. 

It is still hard for merit to obtain recognition ; but if a 
man does good work, and chances to live in one of the most 
enlightened countries of the world, he will probably be 
found out before he dies. Mr. Spencer had a long struggle 
before much attention was paid to him, but at length his 
reward came. One great difficulty in his case was the lack 
of a thorough academical education. By no means the 
least of the advantages of a collegiate or university course 
is that the student is admitted into a society of scholars, 
who will form the intellectual aristocracy of their genera- 
tion. He who joins them becomes known to the others, is 
established as a member of the guild, and wears his badge 
to the end of life. Both recognition and honor come to him 
more easily, by virtue of his membership, to say nothing of 
the advantages of the courses of study and discipline in 
themselves. At the age of thirteen Herbert Spencer went 
to live with his uncle, the Rev. Thomas Spencer, Sector of 
Hinton, who was a graduate of Cambridge. The uncle 
wished Herbert to prepare for the university, but the latter 
was obstinate and refused. Prof. Youmans remarks that 
the uncle lived to acknowledge that Herbert probably took 
the right view of the matter. I do not think he did. Mr. 
Spencer's thoughts and writings seem to me to show their 
main deficiency in precisely those things which a university 
training would have supplied. Many of his friends, how- 
ever, — it is fair to state, — believe that a university train- 
ing was incompatible with the traits on which the develop- 
ment of his philosophy depended. 

Herbert Spencer was born in Derby, April 27, 1820. His 
father and grandfather were teachers, and Herbert, at three 
years of age, was the only surviving child. He did not 
learn to read until seven. He was delicate in health, and 
was not pressed. When he did go to school, he was not 
brilliant. Prof. Youmans says of him that " he was charac- 
terized as backward in things requiring memory and recita- 
tion, but as in advance of the rest in intelligence." He 



Herbert Spencer. 5 

never got along well with languages, but was excellent in 
geometry, in physics, and in drawing, both mechanical and 
free-hand. At the age of sixteen he taught school for three 
months, with good success. Immediately after this, he en- 
tered upon a year's engagement under Sir Charles Fox, then 
engineer for the construction of the London and Birming- 
ham Railway. This was succeeded by eighteen months' 
similar service in connection with the Birmingham and 
Gloucester Railway. From 1841 to 1850 he was occupied 
with private studies ; now and then with engineering engage- 
ments, to some extent upon mechanical inventions, in one 
or two political movements, in the writing and publication 
of various papers, and finally as sub-editor of the Economist. 
In 1850 he published " Social Statics," his first important 
work, but one with which he was so much dissatisfied after- 
ward that he tried to suppress it. 

From 1850 to 1855, a number of essays were completed, 
— "The Theory of Population," "The Development Hy- 
pothesis," "Over-Legislation," "The Universal Postulate," 
and others. In 1855 the "Principles of Psychology" was 
finished, and it was in the writing of this that the author 
arrived at the conviction that the law of evolution was uni- 
versal in its applications. The labor of preparing the Psy- 
chology, carried on without due attention to hygienic rules 
as to diet and exercise, was sufficient to break down his 
health. His nervous system was so disordered that he 
could do no work for eighteen months. This, however, did 
not prevent his active mind from elaborating a scheme 
which grew more definite day by day. He came to believe 
that the law of evolution should be made the basis of phi- 
losophy, and to devise the plan of a system established 
thereon. As his health improved, he prepared to devote 
his entire life to such a work, and in 1860 he published the 
prospectus of his philosophical system, as we have it to-day, 
laying out a task of twenty years, which ill-health has pro- 
longed to the present time and which is still unfinished. 

If to what has been said we add that Mr. Spencer, while 
engaged in his great work, has lived a quiet life in London, 
with occasional vacations, often on account of illness, dur- 
ing one of which he made a trip to Egypt and during 
another a voyage to America, we shall have substantially 
his biography — the uneventfvil existence of a student who 
saw what was in him to do, planned his course, and fol- 



6 Herbert Spencer. 

lowed it steadily to the exclusion of everything else. The 
history of his personal life may be told in a paragraph ; but 
who shall write the history of his books ? Who can 
measure the influence they have already exercised upon hu- 
man thought and action, and who will venture to predict 
the limit of their power ? 

It is not to be wondered at, perhaps, that social advance- 
ment involves antagonisms, since the whole process of ev- 
olution throughout nature is one of action and resistance. 
This is a law of social as well as physical existence. But 
it does seem a little remarkable that, where antagonism oc- 
curs, the interest of men is aroused in proportion to its vio- 
lence. They are a great deal more observant of destruction 
than of constructive results. The lightning and thunder 
command attention, while the sun which is the life of all, 
sustaining all things, and upon which evolution for our 
planet is dependent, is scarcely considered. The "war- 
lord," who distinguishes himself by killing his fellows, 
and shows prowess in battle, is the prominent figure 
in what is called history, while he who has moulded the 
opinions and conduct of men occupies an inferior po- 
sition. Even in the life of a scholar like Mr. Spencer, 
it is his collisions with other people, prominent repre- 
sentatives of other schools, that make his reputation 
more than the still, silent work which is accomplished 
by the diffusion of the knowledge contained in his books, 
— though it extend from London to San Francisco, 
and in the other direction to the interior of Siberia, where 
George Kennan found copies of his writings, somewhat 
mutilated, indeed, by the Russian censor. But the power 
which secures the world's progress is assimilative, and, 
though conflict may be necessary to prepare the way, it is 
the silent and peaceful forces which, after all, convert the 
nations. The influence of the great philosopher, though he 
be not a conspicuous figure of the political or social life of 
his age, is pervasive, stimulating to activity, far-reaching in 
time, and works powerfully and effectively even where we 
are not able to trace it. 

Mr. Spencer's writings met with neglect, and then con- 
demnation. His systematic treatises were published at his 
own expense, and the original plan adopted was of a serial 
issued to subscribers. The publications did not pay, and 
their author was discouraged by the fact that they Avere 



Herbert Spencer. J 

eating tip his substance and bringing in nothing. The most 
important impulse toward success was given to them by our 
own countryman, Prof. Edward L. Youmans, who, as an 
English friend said to me, really discovered Spencer. This 
discovery was accomplished, as Prof. Youmans himself tells 
us, through reading the "Principles of Psychology." Of 
this, even he could make nothing at first, and he threw it 
aside with some impatience. But his sister, Miss Eliza A. 
Youmans, took up the discarded volume, read it with care, 
and told her brother that it was a new revelation in phi- 
losophy. In truth, then, we ought to say it was Miss You- 
mans who discovered Spencer. Her brother, however, soon, 
came to realize the importance of the discovery, and did 
quite enough to vindicate his claim to a partner's share of 
the credit. He interested himself practically in promoting 
the circulation of Mr. Spencer's works. The Messrs. Ap- 
pleton, through his efforts, took up their publication, and 
for the first time a character and standing were given to 
them, in some degree commensurate with their importance. 

Little by little recognition came, until by-and-by it 
dawned upon the thinking world that Herbert Spencer was 
the foremost philosopher of his day. It is gratifying to 
know that, after a while, his books began to yield him an 
income (though by no means a large one), and this is the 
case at the present time.* 

Mr. Spencer is a bachelor. Evidently he has had no 
time to get married. He was not, however, a recluse, till 
obliged to be by the exigences of his work and the neces- 
sity of caring for his health. In 1879 I missed the pleas- 
ure of meeting him at a dinner party, because, as he wrote,, 
he had engaged to take two ladies to the opera that evening. 
Observe that he took two ladies ; he knew how to protect 
himself ; it is a mistake to suppose that philosophers are 
never practical ! He has always entered into social life as 

* It is a mistake to suppose that Mr. Spencer was ever in a condition of pov- 
erty. He saw, however, that his expenditures for the publication of his works 
would necessarily soon exhaust his means, and was distressed, not on account 
of immediate wants, but with the prospect of having to abandon his cherished 
undertaking. The exact circumstances of the rendering of American assistance 
for the completion of his works were set forth in a letter written by Prof. You- 
mans to the New York, Tribune, in June, 1872. About S7000 was raised by 
American friends for this purpose. The amount was accepted by Mr. Spencer, 
" as a trust to be used for public ends," and was employed chiefly to defray the 
expenses attendant upon the compilation of the tables of the "Descriptive So- 
ciology." 



8 Herbert Spencer. 

much, as lie could without interfering with his work, and 
has been a welcome and an agreeable guest in many house- 
holds. 

His most regular associations of this sort have been at 
the Athenaeum Club, which is instituted, in the language of 
its constitution, " for the association of individuals known 
for their scientific or literary attainments, artists of em- 
inence in any class of fine arts, and noblemen and gentlemen 
distinguished as liberal patrons of science, literature or the 
arts." The Athenaeum gives the privileges of its home to 
such non-residents as its Committee of Invitation may 
select, for the period of their sojourn in London. If I may 
be pardoned personal references, it was my good fortune to 
be honored with this limited membership at one time, and, 
happening to be writing home to a gentleman who was an 
editor, I mentioned various items regarding my stay in Lon- 
don, among others my frequenting the Athenaeum. To off- 
set any possible suggestion to his mind that I spoke of this 
from motives of vanity, I put in my letter, with the proper 
quotation-marks and exclamation-point, the jocose remark 
of an English friend in describing the Club, that it was 
" composed of distinguished people at home and less-distin- 
guished people from abroad." I think my correspondent 
must have been of Scotch ancestry : but, whatever may 
have been his pedigree, my feelings may be imagined when 
I afterwards saw, in my friend's paper, a paragraph setting 
forth seriously, and without the quotation-marks and excla- 
mation-point, that "Mr. D. G-. Thompson had been elected 
a member of the Athenaeum in London, a Club which is 
composed of distinguished people at home and less-distin- 
guished people from abroad " ! 

The Athenaeum includes people of all sorts of opinions. 
Men are there of as wide differences in religion as are ex- 
emplified in Cardinal Manning and Frederick Harrison ; 
or in politics as in Lord Salisbury, Earl Selborne and Jo- 
seph Chamberlain. It naturally follows, especially when 
we consider that the membership of the Club is twelve 
hundred, that social intercourse within its pale lies in groups 
formed according to affiliations proceeding from sympathies 
in ideas, or in work. Mr. Spencer's friends are chiefly those 
in scientific or philosophical pursuits, among whom Huxley 
and Tyndall are the most intimate. It is his usual habit to 
visit the Club-house every day about three o'clock. AL- 



Herbert Spencer, 9 

though the library and study rooms afford facilities for work 
he rarely uses them for that purpose, his hours at the Club 
being devoted to relaxation and recreation. Billiards con- 
stitute his favorite amusement, and he generally is found, 
with his coat off, in the room assigned for that sport, when 
the visitor sends the hall-boy to seek him. Whether he 
plays well, or ill, I do not know ; but such men are not apt 
to make a failure of anything they attempt, and it is cred- 
itable to be excellent in billiards if one chooses to play the 
game. Besides, if one is able to win, it is usually a saving 
of expense ! 

Mr. Spencer is a ready conversationalist, very accurate 
and exact in his expressions. As Dr. Hooker once said to 
Professor Youmans, "He talks like a book." This charac- 
teristic does not strike one as pedantry, and is by no means 
unpleasant, though it puts the interlocutor on his guard re- 
specting carelessness in his own words. He is at home on 
all topics of current interest, as well as on those specially 
appertaining to his studies. He is a keen critic, but not 
censorious, nor does he seem to entertain or cherish animos- 
ities. Nevertheless he is very combative ; too much so for 
his own good. He is fond of striking back at his critics, 
and has more than once turned aside from his work to take 
notice of strictures upon his views, when there was little 
utility in so doing. His controversy with Frederick Harri- 
son is a case in point. However interesting this may be to 
readers, it after all seems a waste of words. The position 
of neither thinker was made any clearer, nor was either 
converted by the other. Nor, I presume, was any one else 
converted by either, while much of Mr. Spencer's supreme- 
ly valuable time was consumed in preparing the letters. 
The latter has that genuinely British trait of character which 
causes a man to stand up for his rights, and to resist what 
he deems aggression. Prof. Youmans says he was a dis- 
obedient boy sometimes, and that he never would stand bid- 
lying at school. No more will he stand it in the journals 
and reviews. His sensitiveness to invasions upon his per- 
sonality subjected him to sore trials upon his visit to 
America. Prof. Youmans, however, managed him well, 
and was a happy mediator between the sick man who want- 
ed to be let alone, and the impatient public anxious to see 
and hear the philosopher they honored. The interviewer's 
attempts were disagreeable, persistence in proffered hospi- 



10 Herbert Sjiencer. 

tality on the part of new acquaintances was annoying ; but 
what drove him nearly frantic was the desire of people, in 
some places manifested, to look at him as they would look 
at a fine animal at the agricultural fair. The culmination 
of this latter outrage was reached, I regret to say, in my 
native State, — at Burlington, Vermont, the home of Minis- 
ter Phelps and Senator Edmunds. His arrival having been 
announced in the daily paper, quite a number of people 
called to pay their respects, and a little demonstration in 
his honor was threatened. Mr. Spencer however, tired and 
ill, had gone to his room, leaving orders that he could see- 
no one and must not be disturbed. The people would not 
be appeased, and to his great horror a party of them went, 
to his door, knocked, and, when it was opened, told him 
that they had come to see him and see him they woulcL 
His traveling companion remonstrated, but they were many 
and Mr. Spencer had no gun. They took their look and de- 
parted, but of conversation they had none. You may force 
a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink. No 
wonder that, after this, Mr. Spencer came to entertain a fear 
respecting the permanency of our institutions, and to re- 
mark, concerning our people, "The American has not, I 
think, a sufficiently quick sense of his own claims, and, at 
the same time, as a necessary consequence, not a sufficiently 
quick sense of the claims of others,- — for the two traits are 
organically related. I observe that you tolerate various 
small interferences and dictations which Englishmen are 
prone to resist. I am told that the English are remarked 
on for their tendency to grumble in such cases ; and I have 
no doubt it is true." 

"Do you think it worthwhile," asks the interviewer, "for- 
people to make themselves disagreeable by resenting every 
trifling aggression ? We Americans think it involves too 
much loss of time and temper, and doesn't pay." 

"Exactly," replies Mr. Spencer ; "that is what I mean by 
character. It is this easy-going readiness to permit small 
trespasses, because it would be troublesome or profitless, or 
unpopular to resist, which leads to the habit of acquiesence 
in wrong and the decay of free institutions." * 

One time, at the Athenaeum club, I was introduced by 
Mr. Spencer to Mr. Matthew Arnold, in the lunch-room. J 



* "Herbert Spencer in America." D. Appleton & Co. 188a 



Herbert Sjjencer. 11 

should like to have been at the next table when, perchance, 
these two gentlemen might have sat down together and dis- 
cussed America over a cut of roast mutton, a boiled potato, 
■and a spoonful of peas for each, with a mug of stout and no 
napkin. I would forgive the newspaper reporter all his 
sins, against me at any rate, if only he could have been there 
and reported that conversation. Much would have been 
said that was true, doubtless ; much would have been kindly. 
Much, also, would have been " curious " ; nor do I imagine 
it would have been wanting in "distinction." At the very 
least it would have been "interesting." 

I have noticed a remarkable characteristic of many Eng- 
lishmen, — the readiness with which, at little and unac- 
customed things, they fall into that state which is expressed 
by the word "aghast." It is chiefly with respect to affaira 
•of personal life, in which they behold a difference of man- 
ners. Its first symptom is paralysis; then follows reason- 
ing, from their own stupefaction, subjectively. Because the 
effect on them is great they magnify the cause. I meet my 
friend the Englishman one fine day in summer, and say to 
him, cheerily, " Very warm to-day. A good day for your 
■annual bath." Straightway he is struck " aghast " ; and thus 
he communes with himself : " Yes, quite so ; but that is a 
very extraordinary expression; warm — yes; bath, yes, I 
know ; but annual bath ; what can he mean ? He cannot 
think I bathe but once a year : he has seen the bath-tub 
which I always carry with my luggage. He had a kindly 
and genial smile when he said it. I really am not prepared 
to believe he meant to insult me. But how curious ! I 
have it ! It must be that there are many Americans who 
bathe only once a year. But, if so, how can they keep 
-clean ? It is very, very extraordinary. The Americans 
are a remarkable people; but their manner of address 
seems to me to be rather infelicitous, don't you know. And 
they have not yet learned how to live ; if they had they 
would not postpone their bath so long. ISTo, the Americans 
may have done measurably well in solving the political prob- 
lem, but it must be allowed on all hands that they have not 
solved the human problem." 

Mr. Spencer, however, is very different from the English- 
man of the previous paragraph. He is far too thorough an 
observer to let his judgment of real conditions be deter- 
mined by minor and adventitious circumstances. He is by 



12 Herbert Spencer. 

no means an obtuse or narrow man. His opinions respect- 
ing America were much more correct and substantial than 
those of Mr. Matthew Arnold. The latter never could get 
below the surface. His mind was critical, but not syn- 
thetic or constructive. With him, manners made the man \ 
and there were no manners save his own. He was lacking 
in "lucidity." But Mr. Spencer's vision was wide, and his 
insight keen. He saw things in their true proportions, and 
his criticisms upon our country were received with respect 
and thankfulness. 

It was in February, 1886, that I last saw Mr. Spencer. 
He had perceptibly aged, and appeared feeble. I did not- 
tarry long, for I fancied conversation wearied him. As he 
took my hand at parting, he said, mournfully, "Tell You- 
mans you have seen me, that I have not much strength left, 
and I shall never see him again." What he had in mind 
was his own decease ; but Prof. Youmans passed on to the 
majority before him. Since that day, we have reports of a 
long illness, from which he has partially recovered. There 
is small likelihood that the " System of Synthetic Phil- 
osophy " will ever be completed, but Mr. Spencer's energy 
is great and he will work as long as work is possible. 

Turning, now, from the author to his productions, the 
first thing to be said — and it should be distinctly under- 
stood as incontrovertible — is that Herbert Spencer is the 
father of the modern philosophy of evolution. The impres- 
sion still exists that Darwin is entitled to that honor. This 
is a mistake, which the application of the term "Darwin- 
ism" to that philosophy has helped to perpetuate. The 
"Origin of Species" was first published in November, 1859. 
Mr. Spencer's Psychology, it will be remembered, appeared 
in 1857. This last was preceded by several essays outlin- 
ing the doctrine of evolution, the earliest of which dates 
from 1852. To one of these, "The Development Hypoth- 
esis," Mr. Darwin refers in the Introduction to the "Origin 
of Species." But the "Principles of Psychology," which 
is an integral part of Mr. Spencer's philosophy, and which 
exhibits the doctrine of evolution as it stands to-day, had 
been published two years before Darwin's first great work 
appeared. 

This, however, is by no means all. In its subject-matter- 
Evolution is not " Darwinism," but a natural law of much 
broader scope. The former shows that, universally through- 



Herbert Spencer. 13 

out nature, change is governed by a principle according to 
which there is a course of integration of forces from inclef- 
initeness, simplicity, and homogeneity in their relations, to 
defmiteness, complexity, and heterogeneity. When evolu- 
tion, proceeding in this way, ceases, a reverse movement of 
dissolution begins. This law applies to inorganic and or- 
ganic nature alike. Darwin's Natural Selection is an expres- 
sion of the manner in which evolution accomplishes the de- 
velopment of vegetal and animal life, showing how species 
are formed, distributed, modified, perpetuated and destroyed. 

It will thus be seen that, while Mr. Spencer thought out 
and presented the whole philosophy of evolution, Darwin's 
work was special and limited. That it was a great work I 
am certainly not disposed to deny, but I think we ought to 
understand exactly what it was. It cannot better be ex- 
pressed than in an estimate by Geo. J. Romanes, published 
in Nature. " The few general facts out of which the theory 
of evolution by natural selection is formed, namely, struggle 
for existence, survival of the fittest, and heredity, were all 
previously well-known facts. . . . But the greatness of Mr. 
Darwin, as the reformer of biology, is not to be estimated 
by the fact that he conceived the idea of natural selection ; 
his claim to everlasting memory rests upon the many years 
of devoted labor whereby he tested this idea in all conceiv- 
able ways — amassing facts from every department of sci- 
ence, balancing evidence with the soundest judgment, shirk- 
ing no difficulty, and at last astonishing the world as with 
a revelation by publishing the completed proof of evolution. 
... In the chapter of accidents, therefore, it is a singularly 
fortunate co-incidence that Mr. Darwin was the man to whom 
the idea of natural selection occurred ; for although, in a 
generation or two, the truth of evolution might have become 
more and more forced upon the belief of science, and with 
it the acceptance of natural selection as an operating cause, 
in our own generation this could only have been accom- 
plished in the way that it was accomplished ; we required 
one such exceptional mind as that of Darwin, to focus the 
facts and show the method." 

Mr. Spencer's practical philosophy has been pretty fully 
set forth in his " Data of Ethics," and in his various essays. 
In ethics he holds that conduct should be estimated and 
governed by the rule of the highest utility, but believes 
that an ideal social state, involving an ideal development of 



14 Herbert Spencer. 

character, should always be kept before the mind as a stand- 
ard, to furnish that " counsel of perfection " which his op- 
ponent, Green, urges as necessary though from an entirely 
different point of view. This ideal morality is likely to be 
realized in the course of evolution, but until there is reached 
such a state of society as to make it practicable we must 
also recognize a code of relative ethics by which to conform 
our actions to our circumstances, and aid, so far as those 
circumstances will allow, the progress of mankind to the 
most perfect conditions. This code will involve a varying 
compromise between egoism and altruism. Mr. Spencer 
thinks the antagonism between these two will eventually 
disappear, because the working of social forces must inev- 
itably produce the result that men will increasingly find 
their happiness in the welfare of others. Their egoistic 
gratifications will become sympathetic. Their highest self- 
ish delight will merely be the lust of making other people 
delighted. In a word, individual happiness will only be 
complete in the social happiness. Mr. Spencer is surely 
right in this view. We never can wholly eliminate self-re- 
garding ends. Our own action must ultimately be directed 
to securing our own pleasure and preventing pain to our- 
selves. But it is quite possible for us to so form our char- 
acters that our highest pleasure is the pleasure and welfare 
of others ; and in the measure that this is completely achieved 
is the conciliation between egoism and altruism perfected. 

Our author's political philosophy is as radically individ- 
ualistic as that of William von Humboldt. He believes in 
the minimum of government, and is uncompromisingly op- 
posed to all the socialistic tendencies of the time. With 
ihe militant regimes of continental Europe he has no sym- 
pathy, and in the industrial combinations that seek to build 
up strong organizations for the purposes of domination and 
dictation he beholds an equally pernicious despotism. Mr. 
Spencer would no doubt be a Mugwump in politics any- 
where. He would not support political machines, nor would 
he favor concentration or centralization of power. He car- 
ries to an extreme the laissez-faire doctrine. With him 
society is always "a growth, not a manufacture," and he 
deems that attempts at regulation beyond the necessities of 
security are obstructive of social progress, because they in- 
terfere with the natural growth which is the thing needed, 



Herbert Spencer. 15 

and which can only proceed from the exercise of individual 
spontaneity and freedom. 

This principle has been misapplied in one important par- 
ticular, as it seems to me. Mr. Spencer's views of the lim- 
itation of the functions of government lead him to the notion 
that the State should have nothing to do with education, 
which, he thinks, should be accomplished entirely by private 
agency. Schools maintained by the public, and regulated 
by governmental administration, should be done away with. 
The fundamental mistake here is an error of omission. 
Those who hold these ideas fail to perceive that education 
is necessary as a measure of security. Though they may 
see that the root of all evil lies in the character of men, 
they do not appreciate that mere negative prohibition is 
not enough to secure that free and full development of in- 
dividuals upon which they lay so much stress. There must 
be placed over human beings, in early life, such a discipline 
of the will and of the intellect as to develop the social in 
opposition to the selfish disposition. This is by far the 
most certain means of preserving the peace. And if the 
ideal of the perfect State be a community where there is 
little or no government, such an ideal can only be realized 
by the creation of a predominantly altruistic character in 
individuals. How, then, are we justified in saying, when 
we allow that government exists for the purpose of secur- 
ing people in their freedom, that we ought to neglect those 
means which are evidently the most efficient for the desired 
end ? For security's sake, therefore, the State ought to 
have a care for education, and maintain a system of public 
instruction and discipline. 

There is little to find fault with in Mr. Spencer's notions 
of the general course which education ought to take. He 
asks the question, What knowledge is of most worth ? and 
answers it according to a broad view of utilities. Those 
things which are directly necessary to self-preservation come 
first : then those indirectly ministering to this end, and to 
the full development of human nature. Physical, intellect- 
ual and moral education all have their place in proper pro- 
portions. The treatise on "Education" probably has been 
more widely read than any other of Mr. Spencer's writings, 
and it is likely to be regarded as a classic on that subject 
for a long time to come. It subordinates the aesthetic to 



16 Herbert Spencer. 

the scientific, but it concedes the value of the former as a 
supplement to scientific knowledge and training. 

Mr. Spencer's religious views are readily discernible to 
any one who has read the " First Principles " of his philos- 
ophy. Supernatural revelations he rejects ; but to say that 
his scheme has no place for religion would be a gross mis- 
statement. He makes all nature dependent upon and the 
outcome of a Power which is not and cannot be known, but 
whose existence must ever be postulated. Toward this 
Power, faith may turn, but what it is must forever transcend 
our knowledge ; and respecting its nature or attributes, those 
relating to personality included, no affirmations or denials 
can be made. This is strictly Agnostic doctrine, and it pre- 
sents to us the famous " Unknowable," respecting which so 
much has been said. 

If the term be used absolutely, "Unknowable" is not a 
proper characterization. To be able to affirm that it exists, 
implies some knowledge of it ; and it is a contradiction to 
declare that anything which can be made an object of cog- 
nition is unknowable. In a relative sense, however, the term 
may be used to mean something existing, but beyond the 
reach of further objectification, or of cognition by human in- 
telligence as we have experience of it. This, no doubt, is 
what Mr. Spencer intends. The true statement is that we 
know the existence of an Ultimate Reality which is known 
as such but not otherwise known. 

Here is our philosopher's creed, in a passage from "First 
Principles " : " Thus the consciousness of an Inscrutable 
Power, manifested to us through all phenomena, has been 
growing ever clearer ; and must eventually be freed from 
its imperfections. The certainty that on the one hand such 
a Power exists, while on the other hand its nature trans- 
cends intuition and is beyond imagination, is the certainty 
towards which intelligence has from the first been progress- 
ing. To this conclusion science inevitably arrives as it 
reaches its confines ; while to this conclusion religion is ir- 
resistably driven by criticism. And satisfying, as it does, 
the demands of the most rigorous logic at the same time that 
it gives the religious sentiment the widest possible sphere 
of action, it is the conclusion we are bound to accept without 
reserve or qualification." 

Let us also note the following passages showing the true 
relationship of religion and science : 



Herbert Spencer 17 

" In religion let ns recognize the high merit that from the 
beginning it has dimly discerned the ultimate verity, and 
has never ceased to insist upon it. . . . From the first the 
recognition of this supreme verity, in however imperfect a 
manner, has been its vital element ; and its various def ects,. 
once extreme but gradually diminishing, have been so many 
failures to recognize in full that which is recognized in part. 
The truly religious element of religion has always been 
good; that which has proved untenable in doctrine and 
vicious in practice has been its irreligious element : and 
from this it has been ever undergoing purification. 

"And now observe that, all along, the agent which has 
effected the purification has been science. We habitually 
overlook the fact that this has been one of its functions. 
Religion ignores its immense debt to science : and science 
is scarcely at all conscious how much religion owes it. Yet 
it is demonstrable that every step by which religion has pro- 
gressed from its first low conception to the comparatively 
high one it has now reached, science has helped it, or rather 
forced it, to take : and that even now science is urging fur- 
ther steps in the same direction Otherwise contem- 
plating the facts, we may say that religion and science have 
been undergoing a slow differentiation ; and that their cease- 
less conflicts have been due to the imperfect separation of 
their spheres and functions. Religion has, from the first, 
struggled to unite more or less science with its nescience ; 
science has, from the first, kept hold of more or less nes- 
cience as though it were a part of science. Each has been 
obliged gradually to relinquish that territory which it wrong- 
fully claimed, while it has gained from the other that to 
which it had a right ; and the antagonism between them has 

been an inevitable accompaniment of this process So 

long as the process of differentiation is incomplete more or 
less of antagonism must continue. Gradually, as the limits 
of possible cognition are established, the causes of conflict 
will diminish. And a permanent peace will be reached 
when science becomes fully convinced that its explanations 
are proximate and relative ; while religion becomes fully 
convinced that the mystery it contemplates is ultimate and 
absolute." (Part I., Chap. V.) 

These, in barest outline, are some of the things that Her- 
bert Spencer has begun to teach the human race. The 
fields of knowledge are wide, and many have been the la- 



18 Herbert Spencer. 

borers therein. We appreciate and admire the work of the 
scientist who increases the stock of human learning in any 
of its departments. Agassiz, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Wal- 
lace, and all the host of them, awaken our gratitude and 
command our reverence. But though we have traveled 
much in these realms of gold, 

"And many goodly states and kingdoms seen," 

profounder emotions are stirred when we contemplate Mr. 
Spencer and his work. We think no longer of the ingen- 
ious mechanisms and marvelous adaptations of nature ; the 
wonderful order, the many beauties, the curious things re- 
vealed and displayed for our observation and study. Rath- 
er, it seems as if barriers were suddenly thrown down, and 
a vision opened of boundless knowledge and exhaustless 
being. Then, our past experience becomes merely the arch 
where-thro' 

" Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades 
Forever and forever when we move." 

Then feel we, rather, 

"Like some watcher of the skies 
When a new planet swims into his ken." 

Or, again, like Cortes, 

"When with eagle eyes 
He stood at the Pacific, and all his men 
Looked at each other with a wild surmise, 
Silent upon" that "peak in Darien."* 



* Besides what comes from the personal knowledge of the writer, the author- 
ity for statements of facts in the foregoing essay may be found in two articles 
on Herbert Spencer and his works in the "Popular Science Monthly," one in 
the issue of November, 1874, the other in the issue of March, 1876, both by the 
late Prof. Edward L. Yonmans, and also in the paper entitled "Herbert Spen- 
cer and the Doctrine of Evolution," in Cazelles' "Evolution Philosophy," pub- 
lished by D. Appleton & Co. in 1875. The writer wishes furthermore to ac- 
knowledge his indebtedness to Miss Eliza A. Youmans for several valuable 
suggestions. 



Herbert Spencer. 19' 



ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 

Mr. James A. Skilton : — 

Before entering upon the discussion of the admirable essay of 
Mr. Thompson, I may be permitted, having had little or nothing* 
to do with its preparation, to congratulate you on this splendid 
programme of Essays and Readings upon the subject of Evolution. 
It may seem too much to say at this time, but I believe it will give 
a great impulse to the study of Evolution in the Christian church 
and elsewhere in America, and may produce effects now expected 
by few. Personally holding this opinion with tenacity and en- 
tire conviction, I might nevertheless not be willing to express 
it here and now if I stood alone in entertaining it. But I am 
made bold to utter it by the fact that I am in possession of the 
©pinion of the Master himself on the subject, as expressed in the 
letter which I will now read : 

"The Nook, Horsham Road, Dorking, 
"Dear Sir: 24th July, 1888. 

"I am obliged by your letter of July 11th, with its enclosures. 
I am glad to say, and you will perhaps be glad to hear, that I am 
considerably better than when I gave to Dr. W. J. Youmans the 
impression you quote. Leaving London in a very low state about 
a month ago, I have since improved greatly, and am now in hopes, 
of getting back to something like the low level of health which I 
before had, though I scarcely expect to reach that amount of work- 
ing power which has been usual with me. 

" The information contained in your letter was, I need hardly 
say, gratifying to me both on personal and on public grounds. 
The spread of the doctrine of Evolution, first of all in its limited 
acceptation and now in its wider acceptation, is alike surprising 
and encouraging; and doubtless the movement now to be initiated 
by the lectures and essays set forth in your programme will 
greatly accelerate its progress — especially if full reports of your 
proceedings can be circulated in a cheap printed form. The mode 
of presentation described seems to me admirably adapted for pop- 
ularizing evolution views, and it will, I think, be a great pity if the- 
effect of such a presentation should be limited to a few listeners 
in Brooklyn. 

"Wishing you and your coadjutors every success in your efforts,. 
" I am, truly, yours, 
"Mr. J. A. Skiltojt." "Herbert Spencer." 



20 Herbert Spencer. 

Happening to have in my possession early in the summer an ad- 
vance copy of your programme, it occurred to me that it might 
be to Mr. Spencer a comfort and a consolation, if not an aid to a 
renewal of strength, to learn what you were proposing to do; and 
I therefore sent him a copy of the programme, together with a let- 
ter of cordial sympathy; to which the letter just read is his reply. 
I subsequently learned, from Mr. W. K. Hughes of Birmingham, 
the President of the Sociological Section of one of them, that Mr. 
Spencer had caused the programme and my letter to be forwarded 
to societies in England and France engaged in the study and ad- 
vancement of Evolution Philosophy, as matter of interest to 
European Evolutionists. 

In listening with pleasure to the essay of the evening, I have 
found but one statement open to criticism. It seems to me we 
may believe the world has been blessed in that Mr. Spencer was not 
biased by a thorough academical education, but was left to the 
natural development of his intellectual powers untrammeled by 
direct and overmastering academic influences. His refusal to ac- 
cept the alleged privileges and opportunities of such an education 
while yet a mere boy, marks, to my mind, the early self-recogni- 
tion of those splendid natural powers by which the world has 
been already greatly benefited, and will continue to be benefited 
throughout the ages. I make only a passing allusion to this sub- 
ject, which it would be out of place to discuss here at, length; but 
I may be permitted to say that the history of the development of 
the mind and philosophy of Herbert Spencer is most instructive 
and interesting; that the great advances in the thought and work 
of the world are almost never made by those of the "guild," and 
that we should probably have marred rather than mended if we 
could have had it otherwise. 

The time allotted me permits mention of only two or three inci- 
dents in that history. Examination of the original English edi- 
tion of "Social Statics," published in 1850, discloses to us the 
action of a mind as yet dominated by its intellectual environ- 
ment; the facts presented, the line of thought pursued, and 
the method of treatment adopted, being such as many of his con- 
temporaries might naturally have employed in dealing with the 
subject. We find in that work little of the promise of the splendid 
fruitage we have already garnered from his subsequent works, 
except that derivable from the exhibition of transparent intellect- 
ual honesty and love of truth. Turning thence to the American 
edition of "Social Statics," published by the Appletons in 1865, 
we find that Spencer consented with reluctance to its publication 



Herbert Spencer. 21 

unchanged, and with prefatory qualification of the most impor- 
tant character, in the following words: "But in restating them he 
Avould bring into greater prominence the transitional nature of all 
political institutions, and the consequent relative goodness of some 
arrangements which have no claims to absolute goodness." 

Between 1850 and 1865, then, Mr. Spencer had discovered the 
vast and most important difference between absolute and relative 
morals and principles, a difference which lies at the very founda- 
tion of his entire system of philosophy. When and how was he 
led to discover that difference ? Looking over the list of his writ- 
ings, we note his article on "Population," printed in the West- 
minster Review of July, 1852. That article commences with a 
reference to the Malthusian Theory of Population, and quotes ap- 
provingly the language of a sagacious and benevolent man, who 
said of it: "A time will come when this mystery will be unveiled, 
and when a beneficent law will be discovered, regulating this mat- 
ter, in accordance with all the rest that Ave see of God's moral 
government of the world" ; and forthwith Mr. Spencer proceeds to 
promulgate such a law. In that article we find recognition of that 
difference, and accompanying the same an unmistakable prophecy 
of the beneficent ethical philosophy disclosed in the "Data of 
Ethics," that lights the way through all the wilderness of his 
Avork and thought that lies between them. 

It is a matter of associated interest to note that, according to 
the biography of Darwin, written by his son, it was the reading, 
in 1839, of the "Theory of Population," by Mai thus, that gave 
him also an initial impulse for his splendid Avork in the field of the 
Struggle for Existence and Natural Selection. It is also of interest 
to note that, according to the history of the development of the 
thought of earlier ages, substantially the same great question and 
collection of questions occupied the attention of the great minds 
concerned in laying the foundations of Judaism and Christianity, 
and whose action has so powerfully influenced the history of the 
world. 

In these facts we may at least find warrant for the study and in- 
vestigation of the Evolution Philosophy in and through an Ethical 
Association attached to a Christian church and holding its sessions 
in its place of worship. 

Rev. John W. Chadwick : — 

Mr. Chadwick expressed his pleasure in listening to the delight- 
ful essay by Mr. Thompson. He presumed that in claiming for 
Mr. Spencer the paternity of the Evolution philosophy, the essay- 
ist did not intend to ignore the prior claim of Darwin to the con- 



22 Herbert Spencer. 

ception of Evolution or Development in its biological aspects. 
Darwin commenced the investigations which resulted, finally, in 
the preparation of the "Origin of Species," twenty years prior to 
its publication, — before Mr. Spencer had begun his career as an 
author. Mr. Spencer's acquaintance and friendship with "George 
Eliot" he also thought worthy of note. 

As to Spencer's conception of the Absolute as Unknowable, Mr. 
Chad wick had always felt that, even according to Mr. Spencer's 
own definitions, though unknown it was at the same time well- 
known ; though hidden from us in its totality it was revealed in 
the entire phenomenal universe, where the method of its operation 
was open to our study. 

Mr. Thomas Gardner : — 

The really essential features of Mr. Spencer's system have been 
lucidly presented by the essayist, and his criticism has also been 
judicious. Although I confess myself a devout follower of Mr. 
Spencer, I cannot bring my mind into subjection to his views as 
to the powers and province of government, and think that the 
"laissez-faire" system which he so confidently advocates is not 
always the best for a community or nation. I think there is not a 
little wisdom in the words of Edmund Burke, when he said, "Be- 
fore I congratulate a people on having obtained their liberty which 
will allow them to do as they please, I think it would be well to 
wait and see what it will please them to do." I must confess that 
my bent of mind inclines me to sympathize more, in the matter of 
government, with the fervid aspirations of John Buskin than w T ith 
the colder reflections of Herbert Spencer. 

Although no one has written on the subject of ethics in a sim- 
pler and clearer manner than Mr. Spencer, it has been his fate to 
be, whether wittingly or unwittingly, grossly and widely misun- 
derstood ; and it was refreshing to listen, to-night, to an exposition 
of his views on this crowning work of his life, wherein the really 
noble and tender sentiment underlying Mr. Spencer's speculation 
has been sympathetically presented. I am certainly of the opin- 
ion that the basis of his philosophy is a profoundly religious one, 
and look upon the attitude of the Agnostic, when confronted with 
the shadow of an unknowable and infinite deity, as pre-eminently 
reverential and worshipful. It is, I think, beyond question that 
all deep religious emotion finds its birthplace in a mystic region ; 
and surely, in the noble range of the Evolution philosophy, there 
is a mystic region large enough to satisfy the aspirations of the 
most devout dreamer : in fact it is beyond the bounds of all time 
and space. 



CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN 



BY 

JOHX W. CHADWICK 

Author of "The Bible of To-Day," "The Faith of Reason," "A Book 
of Poems," etc., etc. 



COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED 

IX CONNECTION WITH ESSAY II. 

Life of Darwin, by Francis Darwin; Life of Darwin, by G. T. 
Bettany; Life of Darioin, by G. W. Bacon; Darwin, by L. C. Mi- 
all; Charles Darwin: his Life and Work, by Grant Allen; Bio- 
graphical Sketch of Darwin, by Asa Gray (in Proceedings of Amer- 
ican Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. XVII., p. 449); Fiske's 
Darwinism and other Essays; Darwin's Geology and Natural History 
of the Countries Visited by H. M. S. Beagle; Wallace's Contri- 
bution to the Theory of Natural Selection; Leibnitz's Monads; 
Lamarck' s Zoological Philosophy ; Robert Chambers' Vestiges of 
Creation; Draper's Conflict between Science and Beligion* 



CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN. 4 



Who does not know the story of Dr. Samuel Johnson's 
penance in the market-place of Uttoxeter ? — how, when a 
boy, he had refused to go there for his poor old father, who 
therefore must needs go himself, and stand there, sick and 
weary, at his stall, tending his stock of books ; how, when 
a man and at the summit of his fame, he went down to 
Lichfield, and from there out to Uttoxeter, close by, and 
stood bareheaded in the blazing sun, just where his father's 
stall had been, speaking no word to any man or maid, much 
wondered at for one sad hour by the motley crowd of traf- 
fickers ■ — ■ for it was market-day. At the time of this occur- 
rence Lichfield was a literary centre of considerable self- 
importance. Dr. Johnson thought but slightingly of it, 
and probably sought out no member of the Lichfield coterie 
on the occasion of his famous visit. But here was Mr. 
Day, the author of " Sandford and Merton," who had his 
portrait painted with a flash of lightning playing through 
his hair and illuminating the pages of the book held in his 
hand. Here was Mr. Edgeworth, father of the excellent 
Maria, making love to his second wife, Honora Sneyd, in 
the lifetime of the first, who had eventually four successors. 
Honora Sneyd was the object of a passionate attachment on 
the part of Major Andre, the unhappy spy. She lived in 
the cathedral-close, an adopted daughter of Canon Seward, 
whose own literary pretentions were not slight, and whose 
daughter Anna was called the Swan of Lichfield. She was 
extremely sentimental, according to the fashion of the time. 
She covered many reams of paper with her verses of the 
frosted-cake variety, and wrote besides a good deal of crit- 
icism and biography. An essay in the last-named direction 
is perhaps her best security from complete oblivion. It is 
a biography of Dr. Erasmus Darwin, who was born in 1731 
and died in 1802. He was the most original and important 
member of the Lichfield coterie. The description of his 

* Copyright, 1889, by The New Ideal Publishing Company. 



26 Charles Robert Darwin. 

personal appearance furnished us by the Swan of Lichfield 
reminds us in not a few particulars of Dr. Johnson. He 
was heavy -featured, corpulent, unwieldly ; a stammerer in 
his speech ; with great gifts of conversation, witty and sar- 
castic. With him as with the Ursa Major, a rough outside 
concealed a heart extremely tender and even capable of sen- 
timental softness. In the practice of his profession his 
generosity and charity were not confined to Lichfield, but 
made him loved and honored all the country round. For a 
favorite patient, for whose restoration he had ceased to hope, 
he composed an elegy, thus wearing out the sorrow of an 
anxious night spent out-of-doors beneath her window watch- 
ing the shadows of her attendants pass and repass. But 
she recovered and her husband died, and Dr. Darwin mar- 
ried her. His most famous poem occupied him many nights 
and many busy days. It was "The Botanic Garden," 
which, with its second part, "The Loves of the Plants," 
was published in 1791. It was the work of a man who 
was little of a poet and much a man of science. Its dic- 
tion is pompous and stilted to the last degree ; its machinery 
of gnomes and sylphs and nereids was as absurd as Can- 
ning's parody, " The Loves of the Triangles." But with 
£900 in his pocket for his poem, the Doctor could afford 
the laugh. It showed him thoroughly acquainted with the 
system of Linnaeus. In his "Zoonomia," published a little 
later, he dropped into prose. In this work he anticipated 
Lamarck's conception of organic continuity and some of 
the erroneous grounds of his conviction. His theory of 
Beauty was that it inheres in curving lines and surfaces. 
The sense of Beauty is a reminiscence of the infant's pleas- 
ure in the contours of its mother's breast. "Wherefore a 
child brought up by hand," said Sheridan, "should thrill 
with rapture in the presence of a wooden spoon." Brit, 
however fanciful at times, the average temper of the man 
was patient and discerning. He was no echo of the past, 
but a rude prophet of the coming man, even of his grand- 
son, Charles Robert Darwin, who established the doctrine 
of organic continuity upon irrefragable foundations. 

Robert Waring Darwin was the third son of Erasmus by 
his first marriage, — which was not with the elegiac lady. 
He followed the profession of his father, and confined him- 
self to it more closely, and with results generally satisfac- 
tory. He was eminently skillful, and he acquired a hand- 



Charles Robert Darwin. 27 

some fortune, which, was doubtless much increased by his 
marriage with the daughter of Josiah Wedgwood, of cer- 
amic name and fame, — a man of admirable qualities and 
great force of character. Coming of such parents and such 
grandparents, Charles Robert Darwin was certainly well 
born, with a hereditary claim upon the virtues of patience 
and fidelity. If the scientific passion of Dr. Erasmus Dar- 
win appeared in him, so did Josiah Wedgwood's sense of 
form. " The Origin of Species " is as symmetrical as the 
Portland vase of Wedgwood's admiration ; its arguments 
stand out in as clear relief as the figures on that thing of 
beauty. But the life of Darwin was of a beauty even more 
complete. 

Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, February 12, 1809. He 
was sent to Edinburgh in 1825, it being intended that he 
should follow the medical profession, and the Edinburgh 
facilities for studying medicine were at that time unequaled. 
But he took little interest in his studies, and made little pro- 
gress. He was taken from Edinburgh after two years of 
futility, and sent to Cambridge. If medicine could not ex- 
cite his interest, might not theology ? Possibly it might 
have done so if there had not been at Cambridge a Profes- 
sor Henslow ; before meeting him he tells us the only ob- 
jects of natural history that he cared for were foxes and 
partridges, and his interest in these was hardly scientific. 
But henceforth all was changed. His interest in natural 
history became intense and all-engrossing. A field-excur- 
sion under the guidance of Professor Henslow was his chief 
delight. His name appeared for the first time in print as 
the capturer of a certain bug on one of these occasions. 
Little he dreamed, as thus he saw it, not without honor- 
able pride, what a standard it was yet to be for men to ral- 
ly under in the cause of Ormuzd, Prince of Light, against 
Ahriman, the Prince of Darkness ! 

A description of Professor Henslow from his pen is said 
by those who knew him well to be quite perfect as an ac- 
count of his own character. " Nothing could be more sim- 
ple, cordial, unpretending, than the encouragment which he 
afforded all young naturalists. . . . When I reflect how im- 
mediately we felt at perfect ease with a man older, and in 
every way immensely our superior, I think it was as much 
owing to the transparent sincerity of his character as to his 
kindness of heart, and perhaps even still more to a highly 



28 Charles Robert Darwin, 

remarkable absence in him of all self-consciousness. . . . 
His manner to a distinguished person and to the youngest 
student was exactly the same. ... It always struck me 
that his mind could not well be touched by any paltry feel- 
ing of envy, vanity, or jealousy. With all this equability 
of temper and remarkable benevolence, there was no insip- 
idity of character. . . . When principle came into play, no 
power on earth could have turned him a hair's breadth. . . . 
In intellect, so far as I could judge, accurate powers of ob- 
servation, sound sense, and cautious judgment seemed pre- 
dominant. Nothing seemed to give him so much enjoy- 
ment as drawing conclusions from minute observations- 
Reflecting upon his character with gratitude and reverence, 
his moral attributes rise, as they should do in the highest 
characters, in pre-eminence over his intellect." These sen- 
tences impress us as if the writer had in some stainless mir- 
ror perceived the lineaments of his own mind and heart 
and ascribed them to another. 

We speak of Darwin's as an uneventful life, but it was. 
an event of no small importance for him to meet and for- 
four years be subject to the constant influence of such a 
man as this. Something of essential kinship there must 
have' been between them, but it may well be doubted wheth- 
er the likeness in the younger to the older man would have- 
come out so vividly if there had not been this long and 
close relation. From this first event sprang another of re- 
markable significance: his sailing in the "Beagle" on a 
cruise of survey and general observation. This splendid 
opportunity came to him from Professor Henslow, who was.' 
deputed by the captain of the "Beagle" to select a prom- 
ising young naturalist to accompany him, without salary 
but without expense. Darwin's father gave his consent re- 
luctantly, fearing that so novel an experience might unset- 
tle him for the church, — as verily it did. He sailed in De- 
cember, 1831, and returned in October, 1836. In the "Voy- 
age of the Beagle, a Naturalist's Voyage Bound the World," 
he set down only a part, albeit a very large and interesting 
part, of all his observations. Had he written nothing else 
but this, it would have ranked him high among the natural- 
ists of his century. But it is as interesting to the average 
reader as it is important to the man of science. The germs- 
of almost everything developed in his later writings can be 
discovered here ; notably the germ of his most character- 



Charles Robert Darwin. 29 

istic doctrine, — the transmutation of species by means of 
natural selection and the preservation of the fittest. The 
phenomena of plant and animal life in the Galapagos 
Islands first impressed him with the need of such a doctrine 
to account for the geographical distribution of organic 
forms. From his return in 1836 to the publication of the 
" Origin of Species " in 1859, all of his studies and his 
various publications were leading up to this, the climax of 
them all. In 1839 he married his cousin, Emma Wedg- 
wood, and in 1842 took up his residence at Down, in Kent, 
— where he lived until his death, a period of forty years. 
A generous fortune permitted him to abstain from all bread- 
winning employments and to devote himself entirely to his 
favorite studies. His was a quiet, beautiful, and happy 
home. His boys, as they grew up, could not resist the fine 
contagion of the observant habits of his life. In due time 
there was a family of naturalists, aiding, correcting, and 
encouraging each other. The father's later writings blos- 
som thick with references to observations and experiments 
made by his sons. As early as 1837 we find him reading 
a paper to the Geological Society on the " Formation of Veg- 
etable Mould." His latest publication, which appeared not 
long before his death, was an amplification of this early pa- 
per. It was not that he resumed a subject he had laid 
aside ; he had been waiting for his experiments to ripen. 
For forty years and more the earthworms had been carry- 
ing on his work, answering his pressing questions. The 
last result was Beauty for Ashes, a new and wondrous 
meaning in the ancient words, "I will say to the worm, 
Thou art my brother and my sister " — a brother and a sis- 
ter to whom we have every reason to be grateful, and of 
whom we may well be proud. 

In 1842 #he published " Structure and Distribution of 
Coral Reefs"; in 1844, "Volcanic Islands"; in 1846, "Ge- 
ological Observations in South America." All of these pub- 
lications were the outcome of his voyage in the "Beagle," 
and, together with the geological chapters in the " Origin 
of Species," they are convincing of the truth of Dr. Gei- 
kie's saying, that " No man of his time has exercised a pro- 
founder influence upon the Science of Geology than Charles 
Darwin." If his geological writings had been exhaustive 
of his intellectual activity, his fame would be as enviable 
as that of Agassiz or Lyell or any other contemporary geol- 



30 Charles Robert Darwin. 

ogist. To the leading thought of Lyell, that the geologic 
past finds a sufficient explanation in the present state and 
tendency of things, his various studies brought emphatic 
confirmation. His essay upon " Coral Reefs " proved their 
origin in surface water, and deduced the conclusion of wide 
areas of oceanic subsidence. "If he had written nothing 
else," says Geikie, " this treatise would alone have placed 
him in the very front of investigators of nature." If less 
original, not less masterly were his works upon Volcanic 
Islands and the Geology of South America. The latter 
sought, and not in vain, to prove the slow and interrupted 
elevation of the South American continent within a recent 
geological period. But it was in the relations of geology 
to biology that the geological results of Darwin were most 
revolutionary and important. His chapter in the " Origin 
of Species" on the " Imperfection of the Geologic Record " 
proclaimed upon the house-tops what had before been only 
whispered in the ear, and very timidly. He proved that, by the 
very conditions of its formation, the geological record must 
be intermittent and fragmentary. Hence, in its character 
there was no argument, as generally assumed, against the 
genetic continuity of species, but in such continuity a con- 
clusive evidence of the record's incompleteness. 

In the meantime Darwin was brooding patiently over the 
idea of natural selection which had been suggested to his 
mind by the zoological phenomena of the Galapagos 
Islands, and in 1844 he made known the outlines of his 
theory to Lyell and Hooker. But he had not, apparently, 
the slightest disposition to take the general public into his 
confidence. Another seven years went by, and still another, 
and found him still making experiments, still collecting 
facts, still trying to anticipate all possible objections. "He 
that believeth shall not make haste " ; and Darwin might 
have gone on for another twenty years thinking and prob- 
ing, but for the fact that in 1858 Mr. Alfred Wallace sent 
him an essay, based upon personal studies of the Malay 
Archipelago, which was no more nor less than an expression 
of Darwin's own most characteristic thought. This essay 
was soon after published, jointly with extracts from Dar- 
win's exposition of 1844; and, soon after, Lyell and Hook- 
er persuaded Darwin to publish his own views more fully, 
and this he did in 1859, when he was already fifty years of 
age. This publication was the famous " Origin of Species," 



Charles Robert Darwin. 31 

the most notable of nineteenth century books, an epoch- 
making book if ever there was one. The amenities of 
scientific literature have not a brighter page to show than 
those recording the mutual relations of Darwin andWallace as 
simultaneous promulgators of the grandest generalization 
of the modern world. Darwin was ever quick and gen- 
erous in his assertion of the independent origin of Mr. Wal- 
lace's conclusions, and Mr. Wallace was never backward in 
declaring not only the priority of Darwin's view, but the 
less comprehensive and conclusive character of his own in- 
vestigations. 

" The Origin of Species " was not intended as an exhaust- 
ive statement of the argument for natural selection, but 
only as an outline of this argument. But it was an outline 
in some five hundred closely printed pages, an outline that 
a less exigent spirit would have thought sufficiently exhaust- 
ive. It was the hope of Darwin to fill out this outline of 
his theory in all its parts. What the extent of the work 
would have been if he had done so can be inferred from the 
extent of "Animals and Plants under Domestication," pub- 
lished in 1868. Here, in two volumes, we have a thousand 
pages which are only an expansion of the first chapter in 
the "Origin of Species." There is every reason to believe 
that Darwin had at his command a range of observation 
and experiment that would have enabled him to expand 
every chapter in the " Origin of Species " to a like degree. 
But for such expansion there seemed to be no crying need. 
Other men were entering into his labors and carrying them 
on with great enthusiasm and success. Nevertheless, all 
that he wrote, with hardly an exception, after the " Origin 
of Species" was to confirm and illustrate the doctrine of 
that marvelous book. Indeed, he found it quite impossible 
to study any aspect of nature that did not fall into line 
with his supreme idea. The nature of his studies may be 
gathered from the titles of his successive works : — " Fertil- 
ization of Orchids," " Cross and Self Fertilization of Plants," 
"Forms of Flowers," "Movements and Habits of Climb- 
ing Plants," "Insectivorous Plants," "Movements of 
Plants," "The Descent of Man and Sexual Selection," — the 
second part of which was an expansion into five hundred 
pages of a few paragraphs in the " Origin of Species," — 
and the book on "Earthworms" and "Artificial Selection 
under Domestication" of which I have already spoken. 



32 Charles Robert Darwin. 

To these general publications must be added many papers 
contributed to different societies and printed only in their 
archives. As I have read the titles you have noticed that 
a great majority belong to books of a botanical series. And 
it is true of Darwin that while his earlier writings, before 
the " Origin of Species," were mainly geological, those of 
his later life were mainly botanical. He never professed 
to be a botanist ; he disclaimed the right to be considered 
one ; but one of the first of living botanists has said of him 
that " each of his botanical investigations, taken on its own 
merits, would alone have made the reputation of any ordi- 
nary botanist." But even the aggregate of these separate 
investigations does not afford a measure of Darwin's con- 
tribution to botanical science. The general influence on 
this science of his leading doctrine has been incalculably 
great. Before the announcement of this doctrine the ge- 
ographical distribution of plants was an insoluble riddle. 
To-day it is a riddle that has been as completely read as any 
that the mighty Sphinx of nature has propounded to man- 
kind. 

But to return to Darwin's greatest and most character- 
istic work, " The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Se- 
lection," published in 1859. Original and revolutionary as 
it was, it is possible to exaggerate its novelty. " What is 
the theory it propounds ? " asks one of its interpreters, 
and answers : " Broadly, this : The unity of all organic nat- 
ure ; that all animals now living — and similarly all plants 
— are connected, forming one great family ; and not only 
so, but that they are connected with those of all past ages, 
and are in fact derived from them." And this is a concise 
and admirable statement of the popular idea of Darwin's 
greatest work. But it is a most erroneous idea. If such a 
doctrine had been exhaustive of Darwin's famous book, it 
would have had but little claim to novelty. For in 1859 
this doctrine of the organic and genetic unity of plant and 
animal life upon the earth had already many powerful ad- 
vocates. Goethe was one of them, Treviranus was another, 
Lamarck another, Erasmus Darwin another, our own Emer- 
son another, the author of " The Vestiges of the Natural 
History of Creation" another, Herbert Spencer another and 
the most notable of all. Those who imagine that Darwin's 
characteristic doctrine was the genetic continuity of terres- 
trial life, both vegetable and animal, would do well to read 



Charles Robert Darwin. 33 

an essay — it is very brief — published by Mr. Spencer in 
1852, seven years before the appearance of the " Origin of 
Species." It would disabuse them almost harshly of their 
absurd idea. They will find that Darwin never stated the 
general doctrine of development in a more comprehensive 
manner. If Darwin's claim to an original discovery rested 
upon his general doctrine of development, this essay would 
dispose of it forever. But it rests upon subordinate 
grounds. Undoubtedly his leading proposition is the unity 
of all organic life, and undoubtedly the importance of his 
book is greatly owing to the confirmation which it brings 
to this. But the characteristic work of Darwin was indi- 
cated by the title of his book, " The Origin of Species by 
Means of Natural Selection." Not, so to speak, the what 
of family relationship between all plants and all animals, 
past, present, and to be, but the how of this relationship 
was what he set himself to show. Before his time the fact 
of such relationship was only a brilliant guess — or hardly 
more than this. Spencer had indicated some of the lines 
on which the argument must advance, — the difficulty of dis- 
tinguishing species from varieties, the changes which va- 
rious embryos undergo, the analogy of artificial variations. 
But there was no massing of the facts along these lines. 
There was this in Darwin's work, but over and above all 
this was the central purpose of the book: to show that 
species had originated by the preservation of favored races 
in the struggle for existence by means of natural selection. 
He did not contend that natural selection was the only 
means by which new species had originated, but he claimed 
for it a great and leading part, and he supported his claim 
by an array of evidence which commanded the respect of 
the intelligent, if it did not at once produce conviction. 

The theory of Darwin received not long ago a mortal 
wound, — the last of several thousands, — from a great ex- 
pounder of religion in New York, who declares that he 
would rather look for his ancestors in the Garden of Eden 
than in a zoological garden. The animals in the zoological 
garden would not, perhaps, regret a preference that is sure, 
if acted on, to leave their " great attractions " more un- 
rivaled ; but the remark is painfully significant of the av- 
erage view of Darwin's teachings. It is commonly imag- 
ined, thanks to the teachers of the popular theology in no 
small degree, that Darwin's "Origin of Species" was de- 



34 Charles Robert Darwin. 

voted primarily and exclusively to showing that the ances- 
tors of mankind were monkeys at no great remove. In fact, 
the "Origin of Species'-' contained next to nothing about 
monkeys, and very little about man, to derive whose ances- 
try there was no attempt whatever. But the implication 
was natural and unavoidable : if other species were not the 
results of special creation, the human species could be no 
exception to the rule. Darwin himself had not the slight- 
est disposition to deny this implication or to palliate its 
force. Mr. Wallace, agreeing with him as to the sweep of 
natural selection beyond the confines of humanity, con- 
tended that the development of man from ape-like ances- 
tors could not be thus accounted for. Darwin could not al- 
low the force of his objections. In 1872 he published "The 
Descent of Man." What was implicit in the " Origin of 
Species " was here made explicit. But it was a subordinate 
matter. Darwin's principal and most characteristic work 
was not to explicate our human origins. It was to account 
for the origin of species by the law of natural selection in- 
stead of by the notion, fancy, what you will, of special cre- 
ation. The descent of man from anthropoidal apes is a sin- 
gle illustration of this law, — a very interesting one to us, 
but it is only a single illustration. 

Consider with me the course of argument by which Dar- 
win endeavored to establish this law of natural selection. 
He set out with showing to what a wonderful extent artifi- 
cial selection on the part of man can vary animals and 
plants. May there not be a law or principle in nature cor- 
responding to the artificial selection of the horse-breeder, 
the pigeon-fancier, the . horticulturist and floriculturist ? 
He answered, Yes, and showed how much more general and 
effective it must be than any conscious or unconscious art 
of man. " Man can act only on external and visible char- 
acters : Nature cares nothing for appearances except in so 
far as they may be useful to any being. She can act on 
every internal organ, on every shade of constitutional dif- 
ference, on the whole machinery of life. ... It may be 
said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing 
throughout the world every variation, even the slightest ; 
rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all 
that is good; silently and insensibly working, whenever 
and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of 



Charles Robert Darwin. 35 

each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic 
conditions of life." In the struggle for existence, always 
going on, it is evident that individuals having the least ad- 
vantage over others will have the best chance of surviving 
and of reproducing their kind. In all living forms there is 
a certain tendency to variation. Natural selection is a 
principle which preserves the variations which are favor- 
able to the life of any individual or race. By accumulating 
favorable variations in one variety or species it makes the 
chances of a competing variety for success or even for sur- 
vival less and less. Hence the extinction of certain races. 
But natural selection also leads to divergence of character ; 
for the more the living beings that can be supported on the 
same area, the more they diverge in structure, habits, and 
constitution. The more diversified the descendants of any 
species become, the more likely will they be to succeed in 
the struggle for existence. "Thus the small differences 
distinguishing varieties of the same species will steadily 
tend to increase till they come to equal the greater differ- 
ences between species of the same genus, or even of dis- 
tinct genera." 

The facts to be accounted for are innumerable adapta- 
tions of organisms to their environment. The traditional 
method for accounting for them is that of special creations. 
Now, if it could be shown that all the different species 
were suddenly adapted to their environment, we should 
have ample proof of special creation. But if it can be 
shown that nowhere is there sudden adaptation, and that 
one set of adaptations can be gradually transformed into 
another, then we have ample proof of organic evolution and 
of natural selection as a method of this process. For no 
one will be likely to deny that if there is organic evolution 
by which species are transmuted, natural selection is its 
principal though not its only instrument. What, then, are 
the evidences of organic evolution ? 

First, they are such as are furnished us by the scientific 
classification of the animal and vegetable world. This 
classification is not something arranged by Darwin and his 
confederates. If it were so, we might suspect it of some 
bias from their prepossessions. But Darwin found it wait- 
ing for his hour, ready to cry Amen to his ideal. He 
found his principal antagonists working away at it and 



36 Charles Robert Darwin. 

making it more perfect and with every stroke confirming 
his opinions. Thus, for example, Professor Agassiz pro- 
duced no greater work than his "Essay on Classification." 
You know that he was strenuously opposed to Darwin's 
theory. But his Essay on Classification was unwittingly 
an argument in its behalf. Mr. John Fiske informs us 
that it was convincing to him of organic evolution before 
Darwin's book appeared. But let us see how it is that a 
system of classification is an argument for organic evolu- 
tion. 

The classification of plants and animals has occupied the 
scientific mind for many centuries. The earliest classifica- 
tions were all popular and semi-popular ; that is to say, they 
were based upon external resemblances. A whale was 
called a fish because it had the general form and habits of 
a fish. Even the great Buffon questioned whether a croc- 
odile should not be classified as an insect because the hard- 
ness of its casing corresponds to the hardness of a beetle's. 
He finally decided that the crocodile is not an insect, and 
for this reason : the crocodile is so large an animal that it 
would make " altogether too terrible an insect " ! 

The endless confusion growing out of such a superficial 
method suggested to Linnaeus that internal structure rather 
than external appearance should be made the basis of class- 
ification. At once the sky began to clear. A natural sys- 
tem was worked out. It proved to be a tree-like system. 
A short trunk represents the lowest organisms, concerning 
which, when challenged, " Vegetable or Animal ? " we can- 
not say. This trunk soon separates into two great branches, 
one for the animal, the other for the vegetable, kingdom. 
Smaller branches springing from these represent classes ; 
smaller from these, families ; then orders, genera, and 
species bring us to the smallest branches, twigs, and leaves. 
Now, in this tree-like system we have just such a system 
as the evolutionist would naturally expect. It is "as clear 
an expression as anything could be of the fact that all 
species are bound together by the ties of genetic relation- 
ship." Work it backward or forward and we get the same 
impression : forward, the gradual shading off of characters 
into forms more and more specialized is eloquent for the 
fact of transmutation; backward, the difficulty of deter- 
mining the genus, order, class, of certain organisms of the 
humblest grades is most instructive. Proof there may not 



Charles Robert Darwin. 37 

be here, but if the tree of classification does not suggest a 
corresponding tree of life to an intelligent mind, it must be 
because none are so blind as those who will not see. 

Another argument for organic evolution is that furnished 
us by the structural adaptations of plants and animals to 
their environment. For example, take the whales and por- 
poises. The theory of Darwin is that their progenitors 
were terrestial quadrupeds who by some change in the con- 
ditions of their life had to become aquatic. The least 
strongly inherited structures, such as skin, claws, and teeth, 
would first be affected. Gradually the whole outline of the 
body would become more fish-like, with bones and muscles 
better adapted for aquatic locomotion. We find the seals 
in this condition. The hind legs are much shortened, and 
directed backwards, so that they do not serve for walking 
in the least degree, but help to taper off the body in a more 
fish-like manner. In the whale the hind legs have re- 
treated inside the skin. But, mind you, every change is of 
a sort that adapts the structure more completely to its 
aquatic life. " Thus the arm, which is used as a fin, still 
retains the bones of the forearm, wrist, and fingers, though 
they are all inclosed in a fin-like sack. On the other hand, 
the bat, another mammal, has the fingers enormously elon- 
gated and covered with a membranous web." The special- 
creationist explains such things as these, — there are hun- 
dreds and thousands of them, — by a theory of ideal types 
to which the Creator is supposed to rigidly adhere. But 
the adherence is only so far as the needs of the animal re- 
quire, and the degree of divergence from the typical form 
everywhere corresponds to the period of changed condi- 
dions. The theory of adaptive modification accounts for 
all the facts. The theory of ideal types accounts for noth- 
ing but the unwillingness of men to give up an old opinion. 

Closely allied to these considerations of adaptive struc- 
ture is the matter of rudimentary organs — organs, that is, 
which no longer serve a useful purpose. Such are the 
teeth of whales that never cut the gums, of birds also ; the 
wings of insects who never open or use them ; the caudal 
vertebrae in man, and that miserable appendix vermiformis 
which so often causes death; the masculine breasts and 
certain muscles of the scalp and ear, and other similar 
things. The special-creationist again is ready for us 
with his theory of ideal types. But it amounts to noth- 



38 Charles Robert Darwin. 

ing. It is a mere excuse for a foregone conclusion. It 
is dumb in the presence of such facts as the existence of 
rudimentary hind legs in certain snakes, their absence in 
the great majority. Were God "so anxious for the type," 
he would at least have brought it out in the majority of 
cases. He would not have made the modern horse with 
three toes (the shank and splints), earlier horses with four., 
and still earlier with five, one of them rudimentary. Such 
a progression overwhelmingly suggests organic evolution, 
while the doctrine of ideal types finds in it not a particle 
of confirmation. 

Another argument for organic evolution is the geological ; 
viz., that no highly organized plant or animal occurs in the 
lower strata. This is the argument from temporal distri- 
bution. The argument from special distribution is one that 
Darwin has made peculiarly his own. Indeed, it was the 
argument which first impressed him with the general truth 
of natural selection. It is that differences of structure 
correspond to the degrees of separateness of local origin. 
The opposing continents have the widest differences, the 
continents and adjacent islands the next widest, and so on. 
So, too, the sea plants and animals on the opposite sides of 
a continent are most unlike. Is not the lesson of these 
facts so plain that a wayfaring man, though a fool, may not 
err therein ? What can they mean if not that degrees of 
resemblance mean degrees of special adaptation ? Not an 
oceanic island situated more than three hundred miles from 
land has a mammal except the bat. The special-creationist 
would ask us to believe that God created here the only 
mammal that could get here of his own free motion ! Also 
that on certain oceanic islands he lias placed certain plants 
with hooks ingeniously adapted to catch the hair of pass- 
ing quadrupeds and so disseminate their seeds. But the 
quadrupeds are wanting. Why but because the seeds could 
blow but the quadrupeds could not swim so far ? 

Last, but not least, we have the argument from embryol- 
ogy, — the condition of the young of various creatures pre- 
vious to their birth. Take man for an example. In the earli- 
est stages of his foetal life he cannot be distinguished from 
an incipient plant. Later he cannot be distinguished from 
the lowest animals ; still later, when his vertebrate condi- 
tion is determined, it cannot be said whether he is snake or 
fish or bird. When it is evident that he is to be a mammal, 



Charles Robert Darwin. 39 

it is still doubtful whether he will be a dog, a horse, or a 
man. At a certain stage the human embryo has gill-slits in 
the neck, and arteries branching towards them as in a fish. 
Later the great toe projects at an angle laterally, as in the 
quadrumana. When well advanced, there is a tail longer 
than the legs at the same period, and with a good extensor 
muscle. The presence of hair all over the body, except the 
palms of the hands and the soles of the feet, at the sixth 
month of foetal life is remarkably suggestive. What do — 
what can — all these things mean if not that the embryonic 
stages of the individual man repeat the stages through 
which the human race has come ? From the standpoint 
of organic evolution they are comprehensible enough. 
From the standpoint of special creation they present 
the Creator in no enviable light. He is like a man 
who, setting out to build a Cunarder, makes a dug- 
out first and then refashions this into a raft, and this 
in turn into some clumsy junk or proa, and so on. But he 
is worse than this ; for, if he has pursued the method of spe- 
cial creation, he has done his best to make it seem to us 
that he has pursued the method of organic evolution. All 
the facts — and they are innumerable — are upon this side. 
There are only a tradition and a prejudice upon the other. 

Such, briefly and nakedly, is Darwin's argument for the 
development of species by means of natural selection and 
the preservation of the fittest. To its illustration and its 
confirmation he has brought a countless multitude of facts, 
all tending to show that the progressive adaptation of plants 
and animals to their environment is procured by the heap- 
ing up of beneficial variations. It is an hypothesis which 
corresponds with natural classification, which accounts for 
structural adaptation and for rudimentary organs, which 
tallies with the geological record and with the geographical 
distribution of plants and animals, which at once explains 
the facts of embryology and finds in them its amplest con- 
firmation. The most of you can well remember how it was 
at first received. The scientists and theologians vied with 
each other in their contempt and scorn. It was because the 
scientists were so often theologians in disguise. Hundreds 
and thousands of books and pamphlets and newspaper ar- 
ticles and sermons were poured out — so many vials of wrath 
— upon the quiet Kentishman, who in the meantime went 
on experimenting with his pigeons and insectivorous plants 



40 Charles Robert Darwin. 

and earthworms, provokingly indifferent to the pandemo- 
nium which he had set a-going. The divergence of his the- 
ory from that of Genesis was much insisted on, and certain- 
ly it was very great. Later attempts to show that it was 
not are less ingenuous than the original execrations. There 
were great men of science who joined with the little men 
of science and the theologians in the fierce onset. Even 
our noble Agassiz so far forgot himself as to tickle the ears 
of the groundlings with such ad captandum phrases as " We 
are not the children of monkeys ; we are the children of 
God." But the great Lyell almost at once gave in his frank 
adhesion; Huxley, with real joy of battle, took the field 
against a world in arms ; Spencer, the pre-established har- 
mony of whose thought with Darwin's we have already no- 
ticed, hailed with exceeding joy the splendid special illus- 
tration of the general principles of evolution. With such 
magnificent approval Darwin could well afford the jeers of 
ignorance, the pious maledictions of the parsons and the 
priests. But in 1866, when the " Origin of Species " had 
been seven years before the world, he confessed to Haeckel 
that he had no hope of seeing any general recognition of 
his doctrine in his lifetime. The event was very different 
from his anticipation. 

In 1872 he published the "Descent of Man." He had 
said nothing on this head in the " Origin of Species," per- 
haps because he knew what mountains of prejudice would 
become volcanic at the suggestion of our development from 
the lower animals He would have his general doctrine ac- 
cepted or rejected as nearly as might be on its own merits. 
But the implication of his theory was so obvious that he 
might just as well have made a clean breast of it in the " Or- 
igin of Species." The implication was made explicit enough 
in 1872. His argument in 250 pages is so condensed that 
to attempt to summarize it is like trying to make the char- 
coal of a diamond more compact. Some of the more salient 
points are these : Man is constructed on the same general 
model as the other mammals. Bone for bone, he corresponds 
with the monke3 T ,the bat, the seal. Every chief fissure and fold 
of his brain corresponds to the brain of the orang-outang. 
His blood and tissues are the same, and likewise his diseases. 
The fondness of certain monkeys for tobacco and for ardent 
spirits is certainly suggestive of their kinship with human- 
ity — or does the lesson read the other way ? For objectors 



Charles Robert Darwin. 41 

there is the fact that a certain monkey, after getting badly 
drunk, and having an outrageous headache, would never 
again touch the liquor that occasioned his discomfiture. 
The processes of reproduction, the differences of male and 
female, closely correspond in man and other mammals. The 
argument from embryology I have detailed already. By it- 
self it ought to be conclusive to any candid mind. The ex- 
istence of certain rudimentary parts and organs in man I 
have also mentioned incidentally already. These rudiment- 
ary parts and organs are considerably many. The coccygeal 
bone is the most significant. " Thereby hangs a tail" late 
in the pre-natal period. A comparison of the mental powers 
of man with those of the lower animals is confirmatory 
of his relationship with them. Even his moral qualities are 
anticipated in some slight degree by them. They are ca- 
pable of jealousy, of fear, of love, of emulation, of shame, of 
pride, of magnanimity — as when a great dog scorns the 
snarling of a little one. The moral sense has its beginnings 
in the social tendencies of the lower animals. The more so- 
cial instincts are selected and made permanent because they 
are for the good of those who cherish them. 

Endeavoring to trace the genealogy of man, Darwin de- 
clares his next of kin to be the catarrhine or Old World 
monkeys. But we must not, he says, fall into the error of 
supposing that the early progenitor of the Avhole Simian 
stock, including Man, was identical with, or even close- 
ly resembled, any existing ape or monkey. The five great 
vertebrate classes, — mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, 
and fishes, — are all, says Darwin, descended from some one 
prototype, — probably, as fishes are the most lowly organized, 
from some very ancient and fish-like animal akin to and near- 
ly resembling our present ascidians, a class of invertebrate, 
hermaphrodite, marine creatures permanently attached to a 
support. It is contended that the original group diverged into 
two great branches — " the one retrograding in development 
and producing the present class of ascidians, the other ris- 
ing to the crown and summit of the animal kingdom." 

The volumes that contained the chapters on the " Descent 
of Man " also contained five or six hundred pages on sexual 
selection — an expansion of two or three pages in the "Or- 
igin of Species." Of all that Darwin wrote, these five or 
six hundred pages are the most delightful reading. But at 
the time of their appearance their interest was not a little 



42 Charles Robert Darwin. 

obscured by the intenser interest of the adjacent matter. 
There was another outburst of odium theologicum almost as 
vehement as that which was occasioned by the book of 1859. 
But the vehemence of the odium scientificum was consider- 
ably less than then. And it was very noticeable that among 
those who cried out against Darwin in 1872 there were few, 
if any, of the leading men of science. The six years that 
had elapsed since he had said to Haeckel that he should not 
live to see the triumph of his principles had synchronized 
with an immense advance of scientific thought in the direc- 
tion of that triumph. In America the personal charm of 
Agassiz could not defend his pupils from the force of Dar- 
win's argument, and almost to a man they had accepted his 
conclusions. In Germany the greatest were the first to give 
in their adhesion. Where such a giant as Johannes Midler 
led the way, it was entirely safe for lesser men to follow. 
England, if not so quick as Germany to recognize that a 
greater than Newton was here, was still not slow, consider- 
ing the prejudices that she had to conquer. The tide of 
victory rolled on with steadily increasing force and volume 
as the years went by, and when, in 1880, Huxley lectured 
on " The Coming of Age of the ; Origin of Species,' " he 
could say with perfect confidence : " Those who have watched 
the progress of science within the last ten years will bear me 
out to the full when I assert that there is no field of biolog- 
ical inquiry in which the influence of the ' Origin of Species ' 
is not traceable ; the foremost men of science in every coun- 
try are either avowed champions of its leading doctrines or 
at any rate abstain from opposing them ; a host of young 
and ardent investigators seek for and find inspiration in Mr. 
Darwin's great work ; and the general doctrine of Evolution, 
to one side of which it gives expression, finds in the phe- 
nomena of biology a firm base of operations whence it may 
conduct its conquest of the whole realm of nature." 

In the history of thought there is nothing more remark- 
able than the speedy triumph of a doctrine running so 
strongly counter to the prejudices of mankind in favor of a 
mechanic-God and so offensive to their amour propre through 
its assertion of their community of life with lower and the 
lowest animal forms. How are we to account for such a vic- 
tory ? Largely by the intrinsic rationality of the doctrine 
taught. Next by the overwhelming mass of evidence which 
Darwin brought to its elucidation. Last, but not least, by 



Charles Robert Darwin. 43 

the general temper and spirit of the man, his simplicity and 
modesty, his gentleness and forbearance, his abstinence from 
all contention, his evident desire to know the truth, what- 
ever it might be. As time went on, these qualities made 
themselves felt. They went on before his thought, and by 
them every valley was exalted and every mountain and hill 
were made low, and the crooked was made straight, and the 
rough places plain, so that his thought might make an un- 
obstructed progress through the world and all flesh might 
see it together. Never, I think, since Jesus spoke the words, 
" My judgment is just because I seek not mine own will," has 
any thinker had so good a right to take them to himself as 
Charles Darwin. So little did he care for triumph that in 
the "Origin of Species" he heaped up every objection he 
could find against his theory, so that objectors could say 
nothing against it which he had not said already. 

He died on the 19th of April, 1882 — a great historic an- 
niversary, an anniversary of freedom, and well suited, there- 
fore, for the consummation of a life whose motto ever was, 
u The truth shall make you free." They buried him in West- 
minster Abbey (where I have stood above his dust, with 
Newton's close at hand), as if to make the soul of Stanley 
glad. What a sign was here of the completeness of his vic- 
tory ! It was such a little while since he had been anath- 
ematized and hissed and scorned and slandered and reviled 
as an infidel and atheist, an enemy of Christianity and of 
religion, and now the nation's grandest temple of religion 
opened its gates and lifted up its everlasting doors and bade 
the king of science to come in. 

' ' Far in front the cross stands ready, 
And the clustering fagots burn, 
While the hooting mob of yesterday 

With silent awe return 
To glean up the scattered ashes 
Into history's golden urn." 

It was indeed " the hooting mob of yesterday." They do 
not often come so quickly back. " His body is buried in 
peace," the anthem softly sang, and then rolled, in thunder, 
"But his name liveth forevermore." 

The life of Darwin was a singularly fortunate and happy 
one. His outward circumstances were in perfect keeping 
with his inward disposition. They afforded him the amplest 
opportunity for beholding the bright countenance of truth 



44 Charles Robert Darivin. 

in the quiet and still air of delightful studies ! The only 
serious deduction was a recurrent and protracted nausea, 
by which a man of ordinary will would have been remanded 
to a life of useless idleness. An ample fortune left him 
free from all professional and business cares and anxieties, 
and permitted him to give himself up entirely to the pur- 
suit of scientific fact and law. When Haeckel visited him 
in 1866, he found him in the pleasant home that shielded 
him for forty years, and near at hand the little garden where 
the earthworms Avere working out his problems and the 
climbing plants were intertwining with his thought. Both 
porch and house were ivy-clad, and there were overarching 
and embowering elms. The man himself was tall, broad- 
shouldered, stooping a little as beneath the Atlas-weight of 
his world-sphering brain. Clear, kindly eyes looked out 
from under the deep-furrowed brow, and through his silvery 
beard a quiet, gentle voice made pleasant welcome for the 
pilgrim to his happy shrine. 

Darwin was not one of those who cannot see the forest 
for the trees, who, 

"Viewing all things intermittently, 
In disconnection dull and spiritless 
Break down all grandeur." 

The parts did not obscure for him the whole. He did not 
murder to dissect. The healthy vision of the natural man 
enjoyed the lovely synthesis of outward things, unspoiled 
by any peeping or analysis that was essential to his scien- 
tific search. A worshiper he must have been, and was, — 
a wonderer, for it is truly written, " The more thou search- 
est the more thou shalt wonder." In the popular theology 
he made no investment. He came of Unitarian stock, and 
he went forward and not backward from his inherited opin- 
ions. His favorite religious journal was our own Boston 
Index. He wrote with perfect frankness, over his own name, 
"I do not believe that any revelation has ever been made." 
Since it became certain that his doctrine was to become es- 
tablished science, the orthodox have done their best to cap- 
ture him. But they have only had their labor for their pains. 
" The moral must be the measure of health," says Emer- 
son ; and by this measure Darwin can be safely tried. " Acute 
as were his reasoning powers," said Huxley, '■' vast as was 
his knowledge, marvelous as was his tenacious industry, un- 



Charles Robert Darwin. 45 

der physical difficulties which would have converted nine 
men out of ten into aimless invalids, it was not these qual- 
ities, great as they were, which impressed those who were 
admitted to his intimacy with involuntary veneration, but 
a certain intense and almost passionate honesty by which 
all his thoughts and actions were irradiated as by a central 
fire." 

How does the thought of Darwin stand related to our 
faith in human nature and in God ? This is a secondary 
question. First we must ask if it is true ; and if it is, how- 
ever it may stand related to our faith in God or in human 
nature, we must adjust ourselves to it as best we can. But 
the question, Is it true ? has been already asked, and the 
world of scientific thinkers and explorers to-day, with hard- 
ly a dissenting voice, agrees that it is so. And, being so, how 
does it stand related to our faith in human nature and in 
God? 

To our faith in human nature. How fares it with that 
dignity of which Channing spoke so well ? It is strange that 
the defenders of the popular religion should think them- 
selves entitled to attack it on this ground. Yes, it is pass- 
ing strange ! For what Darwin called the descent of man is 
surely an ascent. And what an ascent from the invertebrate 
amphioxus to the Darwin who can read the riddle of this 
mighty evolution ! And over against this ascent the popular 
religion sets the Fall of Man — a fall which left the descend- 
ants of the perfect Adam a race of intellectual and moral 
idiots, in their flesh dwelling no good thing. I prefer to 
this the Darwinian doctrine of the Rise of Man. I prefer 
it every way. It is not only a glorious history, but it is 
also a glorious prophecy. The way that we have come hints 
at the way we are to go. The force of natural selection is 
still operative in the world. And it is reinforced by the 
conscious and deliberate selection of the human mind. Let 
the good work go on, and when the race has marched as far 
beyond its present camping-ground as this is distant from 
the ascidian prototype millions of years behind us, may it 
be granted us to see, unblinded, from some height of heaven, 
what a piece of work is man. And what a piece of work 
he is to-day ! By the grace of God I am what I am, I care 
not by what means. Such as are good enough for the Eter- 
nal Power are good enough for me, while in my heart arise 



46 Charles Robert Darwin. 

"August anticipations, symbols, types, 
Of a dim splendor ever on before 
In that unending cycle run by life." 

How stands the thought of Darwin related to our faith 
in God ? Truly, it is destructive of many things which have 
been taught concerning him. It is conclusive that he is not 
altogether such an one as ourselves ; that his thoughts are 
not as our thoughts, nor his ways as our ways ; that he is 
no mechanic-God, no Creator in the traditional sense. What 
then ? Is he something less than heretofore he has been 
deemed ? something less great, less wonderful, less sublime, 
less worshipful ? My friends, it is not so. The vastness 
and the wonder, the sublimity and the worship, in the new 
thought, are not less than in the old, but infinitely more. 

' ' For we have learned 
To look on Nature not as in the hour 
Of thoughtless youth. 

We have felt 
A presence that disturbs us with the joy 
Of elevated thoughts, a sense sublime 
Of something far more subtly interfused, 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean, and the living air, 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man : 
A motion and a spirit that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
And rolls through all things." 

This Presence, Motion, Spirit, is our God. God, our God, 
how excellent is thy name in all the earth ! 



Charles Robert Darwin. 47 



DARWIN. 

[Read on the occasion of the preceding Lecture, by Mr. Charles T. Catlin, 
with the permission of the Author.] 

He was a bold discoverer of the wise 
And lucid order of the world, who bade 
Men love the truth and speak it, and be glad 
When each ideal of superstition dies. 

The bigot cursed him, and, with flaming eyes, 
Flashed hate upon him as one gone mad 
With stark God-enmity, although he had 
No blacker sin than honest hearts devise. 

He was a hero for the right of men 

To seek beyond their bibles, churches, creeds, 

Beyond the tyrannous will of pope or priest, 

Thought buried deep in nature ; holy when 

Eevealed to us by any soul that reads 

The infinite mind in God and man and beast. 



Amid the harsh endeavors of old days 
He strove supremely, and, with patient will, 
Climbed masterfully onward, upward, till 
He rose above men' s bitter blame, or praise. 

He probed our life along its secret ways; 
Back through historic centuries, farther still, 
He traced the simple, clear designs which fill 
Creation, as they fill a robin's lays. 

Amid the vast complexity of forms 
Births from one primal ancestry he saw, 
Like stars and planets from one chaos hurled, 

And showed, through aeons of fire and flood and storms, 
The march of evolution and of law, 
The beauty and the wonder of the world. 



48 Charles Robert Darwin. 

Ah, we could only listen when he told 
How, through the antique ages to the new, 
Life from a barbarous toil and struggle grew, 
Like a staunch creeper from an arid mold — 

How savage instinct in the strong and bold 
Crushed out the weak, and how the mightier few 
Roamed in their wild blood-thirstiness and slew 
The fierce-fanged slayers that were Kings of old. 

He pictured to our eyes the carnal strife, 
The eternal woe and pathos of the earth, 
And awful brooding death that makes us mute — 

And thus he spoke the story of our life, 

The growth of mind from some tenebrious birth, 

The soul of man developed from the brute. 

Since he has been, our craving thought has gained 
Fresh wings and ampler airs; his valor broke 
A slavery which had meekly worn its yoke, 
A fear which rose to courage as it waned ; 

He shaped the years he lived in and attained 
The leadership of people; he awoke 
A dream of freedom with each measured stroke 
Cut at the shackles which had held us chained. 

Through him the science of the age became 
A thing so near to every yearning heart, 
So full of what the future man shall know, 

That in our nineteenth century his proud name 
Glows beacon-wise before us — is a part 
Of all that song and wisdom can bestow. 

Yes, wilder, sweeter than the music sung 
By any lute-voice in this age of ours, 
Sweeter than old child-fancy when it flowers 
In trembling beauty on a poet' s tongue, 

Was that new cry within us when he flung 

His thought to men — that precious thought which dowers 

Life with a deeper sense of deathless powers, 

Hope with the faith that it is ever young. 



Charles Robert Darwin. 49 

He lifted darkness from the face of time 
And from the face of nature : we to-day, 
Seeing with his sight, foretell a song shall rise 

Out of his spirit of truth — a song sublime 
As the wind's harmony heard far-away 
Where the sea-surgings seem to meet the skies. 

George Edgar Montgomery. 



ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 

Mr. William H. Boughton : — 

Mr. Boughton, in opening the debate, said : that so much had 
been written and said, and well written and well said, respecting 
Mr. Darwin's work and the almost ideal beauty of his character, 
that nothing remained for presentation, comment or eulogy. The 
use, however, of certain side-lights might bring out some aspects 
which may not have received due attention, notably in this, that 
Mr. Darwin's mental greatness rests quite as much upon what he 
consciously, deliberately refrained from doing as upon that which 
he did. Consciously, because it is incredible to think that he was 
not alive to the questions upon which all eyes in his day were 
centered, such as force, matter, motion, cause, and especially first 
cause. Deliberately, because he did not yield to the temptation 
of even discussing these questions. His grand conclusion was 
Natural Selection. There he stopped, and he did not imperil its 
grandeur by any such formula as, " Given Natural Selection, there- 
fore the Unknowable." He must have heard, as the rest of his 
generation did, all about a First Cause, and its equivalent, a Power 
from which all things proceed. 

These were burning questions then, glowing with the heat of 
their formative phases. But Mr. Darwin refused to make his Nat- 
ural Selection or anything else proceed from Cause or Power. His 
instinct was too alert, his intellect too keen, not to have noted (1) 
that all we know of Cause is antecedence, (2) that among the 
things which we do not know about the Unknowable is that the 
knowable proceeds from it. Granting that, by reason of the rel- 
ativity of thought, we are obliged to postulate some unknown 
force as the correlative of the known force, there is no system of 



50 Charles Robert Darwin. 

logic which compels the conclusion that either proceeds from the 
other ; and this is more clearly brought out by the fact (3) that 
we cannot think or try to think outside of that definition of Space, 
knowable and unknowable, which describes it as the abstract of 
all co-existences; and if this is so, then matter, motion, time, 
force, cause, power, proximate and ultimate, if existences at all, 
are co-existences without the possibility of either proceeding from 
the others or from any other. (4) It is well for us to remember 
right here, and all the time, that matter, however conceived and 
however defined, is indestructible ; and that if, as has been said, 
our conception of matter is that of co-existent positions which 
offer resistance (and anything which offers resistance has some- 
thing more than position), then space is simply an extension or 
attribute of matter, and would offer resistance if near enough to 
be touched by any of the physical or mental senses. Space is 
matter; and it is matter, or substance, knowable and unknowable, 
which is the abstract of all existences; and their co-existence pre- 
vents procession and throws out all ideas cf cause and anteced- 
ence. 

While we may repay the debt which we owe to Darwin for that 
which he did, we cannot discharge our obligations to him for that 
which he did not do. 

Pkofessok P. H. Van deb Weyde: — 

I have two matters of interest to which I desire to call the at- 
tention of the members of the Association. A few years ago, on 
the occasion of the establishment of the Imperial University at 
Tokio, in Japan, my highly esteemed friend, Professor E. S. Morse, 
recently President of the American Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science, delivered there a series of lectures on Evolution. 
He informs me that his auditors listened eagerly to the new doc- 
trine, and accepted it much more readily than our people in Amer- 
ica and Europe have done, owing to the greater freedom from re- 
ligious bias and prejudice which prevails in Japan. 

Professor van der Weyde also read a portion of a letter to Dar- 
win from certain Dutch scholars, on the occasion of his sixty- 
ninth birthday. The letter was accompanied by 217 photographs 
of his admirers in Holland. It alludes to the fact that Dr. J. E. 
Doornik, a physician of Amsterdam, advocated as early as 1808 
and 1816, in published treatises on natural philosophy, the theory 
"that the various modifications in which life was revealed in con- 
secutive times, originated each from the other" ; thus preceding 
Lamarck in advancing evolutionary views. His arguments attract- 



Charles Robert Darwin. 51 

ed but little public attention at the time ; but in 1849, on the oc- 
casion of the translation of the "Vestiges of the Natural History 
of Creation," by Dr. T. H. van der Break, professor of Chemistry 
at the military medical college in Utrecht, the subject of evolution 
received anew impetus — Professors G. T. Mulder, F. C. Donders 
and P. Harting, among others, recognizing the light which the 
theory of development throws upon creation. Other eminent 
scholars, including Professor Emil Selenka, of Leiden, and his 
successor, Professor C. K. Hoffmann, later gave in their adhesion 
to the doctrine, which, Professor van der Weyde says, is now gen- 
erally accepted among scientific scholars, and the liberal think 
ers of the Reformed Church, in the Netherlands. 

Darwin replied briefly and cordially to the letter of the Dutch 
savants, expressing his obligation for the interesting history con- 
tained in it, all of which was quite new to him. 



SOLAR AND PLANETARY 
EVOLUTION. 



BY 

GARKETT P. SERVISS 

Author of "Astronomy with an Opera Glass," etc. 



COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED 

IN CONNECTION WITH ESSAY III. 

Spencer's First Principles, and Illustrations of Universal Pro- 
gress; Haeckel's History of Creation; Kant's Critique of Pure 
Reason; Laplace's Mecanique Celeste; Graham's Creed of Science ; 
Clodd's Story of Creation, and Childhood of the World; Picton's 
Mystery of Matter ; Mivart's Contemporary Evolution ; Winchell's 
World Life; Gladstone's Juvenilis Mundi ; Slaughter's Modern 
Genesis; ISTewcomb' s Astronomy; Stewart and Tait's Unseen Uni- 
verse ; Jevons' Principles of Science ; Tyndall's Fragments of Phys- 
ical Science ; Proctor's Other Worlds than Ours (chapter IX). 



SOLAR AND PLANETARY EVOLUTIONS 



Everything of which we have any knowledge is the re- 
sult of growth or progress, in one way or another, accord- 
ing to law. I suppose that no reasonable person, who is ac- 
quainted with the facts, would pretend that the earth or 
the universe is any less the result of a regular process of 
development than a tree. 

The question before us is, How did the world begin ? How 
were the heavens framed ? Any answer that may be made to 
this question must take into account what, broadly speaking, 
may be termed the nebular theory. But we need not confine 
ourselves to the consideration of the theory of Laplace. I 
speak just now of a nebulous beginning in a general sense, 
without special reference to any particular hypothesis. 
AVhat we want to get, first of all, is a clear conception of 
how the solid earth, the sun, and all the substantial bodies 
by which we are surrounded, were once nebulous masses, as 
thin as air. 

Perhaps we can best get at it in this way. Suppose we 
could take a puff of steam just as it came from the boiler, 
and remove it, freed from all external influences, into space. 
What would happen ? At first, perhaps, owing to its great- 
heat, the steam would be invisible. But the intense cold 
of surrounding space would cause it to radiate its heat, and 
it would condense until it became visible as a cloud of vapor. 
The two great constructive forces of the universe, heat and 
gravitation, would carry on a contest in the little puff of 
steam ; heat pushing outward, gravitation drawing inward. 
But gravitation is the more persistent force, and as the heat 

* Synopsis, from stenographer's notes, corrected by the lecturer. Copyright, 
1889, by The New Ideal Publishing Company. 

The thanks of the Publishers, and of the Brooklyn Ethical Association, are 
due to Messrs. D. Appleton & Company for the use of the illustrations on pages 
59, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68 and 69. 

The cuts illustrating Laplace's theory and Faye's hypothesis were kindly fur- 
nished by Mr. Serviss — the former having been devised by Professor George 
W. Coakley, for his lecture on "The Nebular Hypothesis of Laplace," read be- 
fore the American Astronomical Society. 



56 



Solar and Planetary E eolation. 



leaked away gravitation would draw together the particles 
of vapor until a drop of water was formed, and so from in- 
visible vapor our puff of steam would have become a visible 
liquid. Behold a miracle ! Yet the explanation is simple. 

As the process of cooling continued, the drop of water 
would become a substance of yet a different order, for there 
would still be some heat left in the water, and this would 




ifig.l, — representing the equator of the solar atmosphere after it has aban- 
doned a ring at the centrifugal limit, according to Laplace's theory. 

continue to escape into space, until finally, when the freez- 
ing point was reached, the drop of water, through the action 
of crystallization, would turn into a ball of ice. We should 
thus see a puff of steam change from an invisible gas to a 
vapor, from a vapor to a liquid, and from a liquid to a solid 
body, and all through the simple process of cooling. 

The creation of a world is just as simple as that. Heat 



Solar and Planetary Evolution. 



57 



and gravitation, those arch-mechanics, which without the 
aid of saw or hammer, have builded the universe, contended 
for mastery in the evolution of the earth just as they did in 
our puff of steam. Gravitation has always prevailed in the 
end, because gravitation cannot leak away like heat. The 
earth was first a nebula — perhaps an invisible gas — then 
in the state of a liquid, and finally it became, as we see it, 
solid, cool and habitable. It is only a question of the 




Fig. 2, — representing the ring broken into several segments. 

amount and intensity of heat. Given heat enough and it 
would be as easy to turn the earth into a nebulous cloud as 
to melt a snow-flake. 

Laplace gives us one hypothesis of the origin of the so- 
lar system, which I will endeavor to illustrate. (At this 
point the lights in the church were extinguished, and a pic- 
ture of a revolving nebula was thrown upon the screen, 



58 



Solar and Planetary Evolution. 



which was made to throw off concentric rings of nebulous 
matter. These rings being thinner at some point than else- 
where, broke at the thinnest place, condensed into oblate 
spheroids, and, with continued rotation, into spheres. See 
Figures 1, 2 and 3, pages 56, 57 and 58.) The rotating 
nebulous mass contracts by loss of heat ; and, accord- 



^ — <% 




Fig. 3. — representing the fragments of the ring, as shown in Fig. 2, gathered 
up into spherical form by the mutual attraction of their molecules. It will be 
seen that the spheres must naturally revolve around the solar equator in the 
same direction that it moves, and also rotate on their axes in the same direction. 
Moving in nearly the same orbit, they would next be gathered into a single 
sphere, moving around the sun in the same direction, but with eccentricities 
dependent upon the force and directions of their collisions at the time of their 
uniting. 

ing to a well-known law, as it contracts its velocity of 
rotation increases. When the centrifugal and centripetal 
forces at the equator of the mass balance one another a ring 



Solar and Planetary Evolution. 



59 



of matter separates off and is left suspended around the con- 
tracting nucleus. Other rings form in the same way, until 
a series of them surrounds the central mass which has con- 
tracted into a sphere. But these rings are not everywhere 
of equal thickness, and the tendency of their constituent 
particles to gravitate toward the thickest part causes them 
to separate at the thinnest point, and finally to form oblate 
spheroids of nebulous matter, which ultimately condense 
into spheres. 




Tig. 4. The planet Saturn, showing rings, and size as compared with the earth. 

Let us illustrate this by supposing that we have a grind- 
stone, on which, while rotating, we pour a film of water. If 
we revolve it fast enough the water will fly off, but we may 
revolve it just fast enough to cause the centrifugal and cen- 
tripetal forces to balance. Then if we could make the stone 
contract in size, the layer of water would be left suspended 
in the air as a ring surrounding the revolving grindstone. 
In the case of the revolving nebula, the contraction of the 
inner sphere of nebulous matter assists in the separation of 



60 



Solar and Planetary Evolution. 



the surrounding ring. The spheres formed from the rings: 
would in turn throw off additional rings to form satellites. 

Now, if we look at the solar system, we discover in its 
character and movements strong confirmation of this hypoth- 
esis. We find there just what would naturally occur were 
this theory a correct one. Each planet revolves around the 
central orb at its own speed and in its own distinct orbit, 
and in a direction in common with the rotation of the orig- 
inal nebulous mass. The nebular theory constitutes there- 
fore a conclusive and nearly satisfactory explanation of the 
way in which those great demiurgic forces, heat and grav- 




itation, have wrought out the results we see. In the plan- 
et Saturn we have an example, patent to any observer, of 
the probable truth of the nebular theory. (A representa- 
tion of the planet was thrown upon the screen. See Fig. 4, 
page 59.) Through any telescope, even of moderate power,. 
Ave may see that this planet is surrounded by rings, which, 
being nearly equal in density, have not been broken up into 
satellites by the unequal attraction of their various parts. 
Though these rings seem solid and uniform through the tel- 
escope, it is reasonably certain that they are composed of 
many small bodies, rotating in the same plane, and so pre- 
senting the appearance of a flat surface. 



Solar and Planetary Evolution. 



61 



Now, certain objections have been made to the nebular 
theory, the most important of which is based upon the di- 
rection of the rotation of the two outermost planets and their 
satellites. The satellites of the inner series of planets, from 
Mercury to Saturn, inclusive, revolve as the planets do, from 
west to east. Those of Uranus, however, revolve nearly at 



r 



Rotation 

of the 

outer 

planets, 

and 

retrograde 

motion 

of the 

satellites. 




Rotation 
of the 
inner 

planets, 
and 
direct 
motion 
of the 

satellites. 




Fig. 6. Motion of planets and satellites if formed simultaneously, as by Faye's 
hypothesis. 

right angles with the plane of rotation of the planet, while 
those of Neptune revolve in a reverse direction. This would 
at first appear to be a serious objection to the theory ; but 
recently the French astronomer, Faye, has propounded an 
hypothesis which explains this apparent anomaly. (See 
Figures 5 and 6, above and on the opposite page.) Faye's 



62 Solar and Planetary Evolution. 

explanation rejects the theory of Laplace in part, and goes 
back to that of Descartes, which assumes that the planetary 
rings were produced by a vortical or whirlpool motion of the 
original nebulous matter, and nearly simultaneously, instead 
of by the successive separation of concentric rings. Suppos- 
ing that the entire mass from which the planets are formed 
revolves in one general direction as a whole, like a grind- 
stone or wheel, it is evident that the outer edge of the 
mass would rotate much faster than the inner portions. 
This would also be true of a vortical ring formed within the 
mass, and, when that ring broke up, as its outer edge would 
tend to move faster than its inner edge this tendency would 
be impressed upon the resulting spheroid, which consequent- 
ly would rotate on its axis in the same direction in which 
it moved around the sun. In this way, M. Faye thinks, the 
inner planets received their impulse of rotation from west 
to east. But before the rings of Neptune and Uranus (being 
formed somewhat later than the others) condensed into 
planets, the sun had attracted to itself nearly all the 
matter not already formed into planets, and the rings, being 
thus left separate, began to revolve, not as if they all 
formed parts of one disk, but independently. Thereupon their 
velocity varied inversely as their distance from the sun, 
their outer edges tended to move more slowly than their 
inner edges, and consequently the planets formed from them 
rotated in the opposite direction to their revolution 
around the sun. Of course the satellites formed from these 
planets would revolve around their primaries in the same 
direction in which the primaries rotated on their axes. 

Dr. Karl Braun, a German philosopher, has suggested an- 
other theory of planetary evolution. He assumes that 
throughout the original mass various centers of condensa- 
tion were formed, which ultimately became planetary bodies, 
revolving around the largest centre of condensation of all, 
which was the sun. All these theories agree in assuming 
that the original condition of the universe was that of a neb- 
ular mass, and that suns and satellites were evolved from 
it by the action of laws precisely similar to those which we 
behold still active in this world in which we dwell. 

If, now, on looking at the starry heavens through the tel- 
escope, we find nebulous masses in the same condition in 
which we have supposed the sun and the earth to have form- 
erly existed, it will go far to confirm the nebular hypothesis 



Solar and Planetary Evolution. 63 

of tlie origin of the solar system. That is precisely what 
we may observe. (A representation of a nebula in the con- 
stellation of Lyra was thrown upon the screen. See Fig- 




Two views of the rine nebula in Lyra 



ure 7.) If we look at this nebula, we find great rifts in 
it, and brighter spots in some places, which show that there 
is greater condensation in certain parts than elsewhere. A 
nebula in the constellation of Leo (shown upon the screen) 
shows a marked center of attraction, with evidences of a 




Fig. 8. Nebula in Sword of Orion, showing several points of condensation. 

tendency to circular motion. A nebula in Draco (illustra- 
ted from a photograph taken by Prof. Holden by the aid of 
the new Lick telescope, the largest in the world) shows a 



64 Solar and Planetary Evolution. 

spiral formation of a new order, as if a star had revolved 
around another star, which was itself in motion, and had 
left a train of nebulous matter behind it like a comet. 
(See spiral nebula in Canes, Figure 13, page 69.) A pho- 
tograph (thrown upon the screen) of a strange nebulous 
object attached to the star Maiain the Pleiades, is interest- 




Fig. 9. Surface of the Sun, magnified, showing granular, or "rice-grain" 
appearance. 

ing as being the picture of an object which has never been 
seen by the eye of man, even by the aid of the most power- 
ful telescope. The photographic plate is more sensitive 
than the retina of the human eye. This is an apparent il- 
lustration of the hypothesis that all nebulae may have been 



Solar and Planetary Evolution. 65 

formed originally, from an invisible gas. The great nebula 
in the sword of Orion (see Figure 8, page 63) shows many 
points of condensation. From it will be developed a little 
universe within a greater universe, forming in time not a 
single sun or star, but a cluster of stars. 

We have seen in the nebulae evidencies of rotation and 
contraction. Now let us consider the condition of a body 
after it has passed out of the nebulous into the solid state. 
(A picture of a portion of the sun's surface is thrown upon 
the screen, showing a dark back-ground, mottled with 
shining spots. See illustration, Figure 9, on page 64, 



r 



■ 38 



\" r ' 




Fig. 10. Section of the Sun's Surface, showing a helt of sun-spots, near the 
center of the disk. 

opposite.) The surface of the sun, of which we shall first 
speak, is not uniformly clear and shining, but broken up into 
bright parts interspersed with parts that are less luminous. 
The shining portions are sometimes called "rice-grains," 
from their appearance, and seem like clouds of luminous 
matter. These are the parts of the sun which give light. 
Sir John Herschel suggested that they might be "living or- 
ganisms," but they are merely the hotter portions of the 
solar surface. Among them sometimes appear great rifts or 
spots (a picture of solar spots is thrown upon the screen) 
which are never seen at the poles, but always within a cer- 



■66 Solar and Planetary Evolution. 

tain region on either side of the sun's equator ; these regions 
are like broad bands parallel with the equator. (See Fig- 
ure 10, page 65.) 

(A photographic picture of the planet Jupiter is thrown 
on the screen. See illustration, Figure 11, below.) Ju- 
piter, which has only recently passed out of the condition 
which the sun is now in, shows bands in its cloudy envelope, 
which cover regions similar to those on the sun where spots 
appear, and foreshadows what will be the fate of the sun 
when it shall lose its brilliancy and become dark and dead. 
Jupiter being smaller than the sun, cooled sooner ; but the 



Fig. 11. The planet Jupiter, showing belts, and size as compared with the earth. 

sun, astronomers tell us, will follow in the same path. The 
end of all will be that the sun will become a great planet, 
like Jupiter, but differing from the other planets, as we see 
them, in that it will have no light to reflect. What a theme 
for another Milton ! This great and generous sun, which 
has shed his light without stint on all around him, gilding 
even the dust of space, shall be robbed and stript of his 
splendor, and go wandering blindly through the heavens, 
dragging after him the dead worlds that once basked in his 
beams. 

The earth, as we know it, illustrates the next step in de- 



Solar and Planetary Evolution. 67 

velopment beyond the condition of Jupiter. Millions of 
years ago the earth was like Jupiter, and before that, it 
was a sun, shining by its own light. Ages earlier still, it 
was in the condition of a nebula. Now, we dwell on the 
hardened surface of an extinguished star. The earth ha& 
passed through all the stages of growth ; mountains, plains 
and ocean-beds have been formed by gradual and entirely 
natural processes ; and at last it has reached the stage in 
which geological changes are so slow that the tiny coral 
animals may be ranked among world-builders, as they lay 
the foundations of future continents. Even in its present 
condition, the earth is still radiating heat into space. Ac- 
cording to Guyot, the earth at the time of the deposition 
of the lower strata might be likened to a galvanic pile, 
which radiated streams of electricity into surrounding space. 
The earth retains the faint reflection of one of its solar 
features in the auroral lights. These phenomena are of an 
electrical character. The earth is a great magnet, having 
its positive and negative poles, and it is near these poles 
that the auroral lights shine the most brightly. There is 
an intimate connection between the spots and outbursts 
which we observe on the sun, and the magnetic condition 
of the earth. 

When Ave contemplate this fair earth, with its manifold 
beauties and teeming life, we naturally wish that this was 
the last stage in its evolution ; but science will not let us 
pause. The earth, astronomy tells us, must die, and be- 
come like that dead world, the moon, which forever accom- 
panies it, and shows what this world will sometime be. 
The most bitter disappointment connected with the im- 
provement of modern telescopes, is the discovery that the- 
moon is a dead world. (A magnified photograph of the 
moon was shown. See Fig. 12, page 68.) It has vast ocean- 
beds, but no water ; volcanoes, but no fire. There is no- 
grass, no clouds, no atmosphere. In all that dead world 
there can be no sound ; for, without an atmosphere to con- 
vey the waves of sound to the ear, though the beetling 
crags of mountains should topple and fall there would be no 
noise from the concussion. The moon as seen through the- 
telescope has a certain beauty, but it is the beauty of icicles,, 
not that of a living world. 

Light may be thrown upon the question of the formation 
of the universe, by contemplating its shape or form. Her- 



68 



Solar and Planetary Evolution. 



schel, viewing the Milky- Way as it appears to us in the 
heavens, conceived of the universe as a flat disk. The con- 
ception of the late Mr. P. A. Proctor, however, which may 
be regarded as his greatest scientific achievement, presents 
a more probable idea of the form of the universe. (A pic- 




Fig. 12. A portion of the Moon's surface, showing lunar volcano, "Copernicus." 

ture illustrative of Mr. Proctor's conception is thrown upon 
the screen.) Mr. Proctor dissented from HerschePs theory, 
and regarded the Milky -Way as manifesting a spiral form, 
similar to that exhibited by some of the nebulae. 

Various speculations have been made regarding the ex- 



Solar and Planetary Evolution. 



69 



tent of the universe. Are there an infinite number of 
worlds, extending beyond our utmost vision ? We cannot 
know. All the objects within the reach of the most power- 
ful telescopes belong to our universe. It is possible that 
other universes exist beyond, which we are unable to per- 
ceive because of the absence of a luminiferous ether, con- 
necting them with our range of vision. It is an interest- 
ing question whether our universe is still young and grow- 
ing, or whether it is now on its downward course, tending 
to decay and death. Respecting this question it may be 
said that we find within the range of vision very few dead 




Fig. 13. Spiral nebula in Canes Venatici. 



stars, while the number of nebulae in process of forming 
into stars is very great. We may therefore assume that 
the universe is still in a youthful condition and has not 
passed the noon of its existence. The spectroscope assures 
us that those stars which shine with a red light are the old- 
est, and the nearest extinction. Of these there are com- 
paratively few. 

We have brought the history of a planet from the period 
of its primal evolution out of the fiery mist, to its extinc- 
tion. Is this all ? Will there be no resurrection of dead 
worlds ? When a planet like the moon has parted with its 
heat it will still continue to rotate on its axis and to re- 



70 Solar and Planetary Evolution. 

volve around its gravitational centre. In this continued mo- 
tion resides the potency of renewed life. Motion is trans- 
ferable into heat ; and heat calls gravitation into action. If 
the earth, moving through space at the rate of nearly twen- 
ty miles a second, should meet another body of like size 
and velocity, its mountains would dissolve in fiery mist, its 
oceans would be turned into vapor, its continents would dis- 
solve in smoke, and the solid earth would melt like wax 
and disappear in a nebulous cloud. The same would be 
true of an encounter between the sun and another sun pos- 
sessing equal mass and equal or greater velocity ; out of 
the nebula thus formed, through the process of evolution, 
a new sun might be formed, and new life ultimately dawn 
on other worlds. The stars are shooting in every direction 
in erratic courses, and such collisions are not impossible. 
It is reasonabty certain, indeed, that they have occurred. 
New stars have suddenly appeared, and stars of lesser mag- 
nitude have blazed up into more magnificent suns. 

The charm of the study of creation, where we behold the 
gleam of millions of suns, and systems on systems, is not 
in thinking of our own insignificance in the presence of this 
wonderful universe ; for we are small only as we identify 
ourselves with our little earth. We should regard our- 
selves not merely as citizens of the world, but, with a true 
cosmopolitan spirit, as citizens of the universe. Matter 
changes form, but it is not created and it does not die. 
When the sun is dead and the earth is in darkness, the 
wheels of life will still run in the light of other suns ; and 
even our ashes may yet thrill with new life, on a new earth,, 
in the beams of a new sun. 



Solar and Planetary Evolution. 71 



ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 

Dr. Eobert G. Eccles: — 

The lecture of Mr. Serviss has been highly interesting as well 
as instructive. He has handled his subject with a degree of ability 
and candor highly praiseworthy. 

The nebular theory of Laplace is a very fascinating one, and at 
first sight seems to give us a picture of conditions that might 
have evolved our Solar System. Its fundamental principles are 
undoubtedly sound, but the more we study the matter in detail 
the less likely we are to acquiesce in it as a conclusion. The 
speaker has already called our attention tp a number of weak 
points, and told us of several modifications of it which have been 
adopted by leading astronomers. The fact that irresolvable neb- 
ulae exist, and that the spectroscope declares them to be in a 
gaseous condition, is beyond dispute. The further fact that 
science, in retracing the earth's history, is irresistably carried 
back to a condition of intense heat as the primal cosmic state, is 
equally true. So far all are agreed. To look upon the pictures of 
the various nebulae which have been shown us to-night seems, to 
my way of thinking, to pretty thoroughly negative the conclusions- 
of Laplace. At least they do not seem destined to form any such 
systems as ours is. The lack of sei-ial connection, as well as lack 
of uniformity in their conformation, seems to show that no two of 
them are rushing toward a common destiny. Some do show a 
suggestion of a whirl, but not of the Laplacean type. 

Such a theory seems to me to violate the basic laws believed in 
by modern evolutionists. It begins with a highly specialized form 
of motion, and gives no hint as to its genesis. There is altogether 
too much order, where we should find chaos. What is the cause 
of the rotation ? Why does the matter all tend to one rather than 
many common centers ? We have numerous reasons for believing* 
that a mass so vast, when cooling, would not cool evenly, nor 
move evenly. We have none for believing the contrary. The neb- 
ula in Orion looks very like an ideal of the primitive state of 
this solar system which I presented at a meeting of the old Brook- 
lyn Philosophical Society many years ago, and at which our present 



72 Solar and Planetary Evolution. 

chairman was present. In that, it was assumed that the mass, in 
cooling by radiation, did so unevenly. Very many centers were 
necessarily formed, evaporated, and reformed again and again. 
Collision and crash among them brought about concentration of 
many into few. A veritable struggle for existence went on, upon 
a most gigantic scale, in which explosions, attractions and wrecks 
of embryo worlds were the rule. Their centralization was not 
upon a common plane, but in three directions, while the move- 
ments were erratic in the extreme. The present directions and 
modes of motion are the resultants of an incalculable number of 
destroyed tangents. The planets and their satellites now existing 
are in positions of harmonic adaptation. World-life began as pre- 
cariously as animal life. The present perfected planetary exis- 
tence is the outcome of a triumph over and adaptation with envir- 
onment. All not in such positions, and with such motions of 
adjustment, were dashed into meteors and star-dust or assimilated 
as food by these. Gravity still continues to shower in upon the 
survivors these remnants, to increase their volume. 

The late Richard A. Proctor had a theory of cosmic evolution 
to which Mr. Serviss did not refer to-night. He held that planets 
were all originally built up of meteors, and not of coalescing fluid 
rings. The moon he believed to have been built up of fragments 
originally cast from the earth. The sun's attraction, raising the 
liquid mass as two great tides on opposite sides of the globe, con- 
spired with the diurnal motion to project these in showers into 
space. Final concentration around a common center gave us the 
moon. The earth was born in a similar manner from the sun. As 
multitudes of such pieces are still flying through space, all the 
planets and even the sun himself are increasing in bulk by their 
return to their parent masses. 

The doctrine of the degradation of energy enunciated by Mr. 
Serviss has never seemed to me to be altogether a sound one. We 
do not know the cause of gravity nor of affinity, and, until we do, 
speculations of this kind, especially as they lead to such doleful 
conclusions, should be curbed. Gravity itself may be a product 
of the evolution of matter. So also may be chemical affinity. If 
they developed pari passu with the fire-mist, the round of change 
may break their links and set all primal substance free again. 
The chilling process may, for anything we yet know to the con- 
trary, bring on a rhythm in matter that will break cohesion, affinity 
and gravity, releasing everything into the universal urstaff from 
which the fire-mist was begotten. To believe that suns will co- 



Solar and Planetary Evolution. 73 

alesce with suns, and worlds with worlds, to be thrown back again 
and again with diminishing force, till at last the whole universe 
ends as a dead, black, monster furnace-slag, is to reason from in- 
sufficient data and come to improbable conclusions. An incalcu- 
lable period of time has already gone by, and the finite energy we 
know of should long ago have been degraded and escaped. The 
universe should already have been a slag ; but it is not. Substance 
jper se, in cycle of experience from invisibility to matter, is much 
more likely to have a rhythm of contraction and union with ex- 
pansion and disunion, through inherent forces, than worlds are 
likely to rush into each others' embrace and be cast off again. 
Let the physical cause of cohesion cease, and there will no longer 
be such a bond. How do we know that cohesion is uncaused '? 
How do we know that gravity has not a physical condition pro- 
ducing it ? Dissolve that condition and where is gravity ? Re- 
move gravity, cohesion and affinity, by evolving out of the physi- 
cal conditions producing them, and all things will gradually melt 
into the impalpability of the universal ether from whence they 
first came. Here they can once more commence their career, 
while the law of continuity is allowed to pursue the even tenor of 
its way without that bugbear of every embryo science, cataclysm. 
Natura nonfacit saltum. 

Pbofessoe P. H. Van dee Weyde: — 

I do not think that the theory of Laplace, so clearly explained 
and illustrated by the lecturer, properly accounts for the forma- 
tion of our solar system. When motion originates from the cen- 
ter of a mass, and is communicated outward, as in Laplace's 
theory, the inside of each fluid ring, on separation, will move 
more rapidly than the outside; and when the ring breaks, the di- 
rection of rotation of the resulting globes will be opposite to that 
of the central mass. This is the reverse of what we see in our 
solar system. We have, however, only to conceive of matter dis- 
persed through space in a highly rarified state, — dispersed un- 
equally as regards quantity and quality, — and then the operation 
of the simple law of gravitation is sufficient to explain the forma- 
tion of all solid, liquid or gaseous masses forming our solar sys- 
tem. 

We have to start with nebulous matter diffused through space, 
and mutually acting and acted upon by the universal force of grav- 
itation. The reaction of this force, commencing from the outside 
and acting inward toward centers of condensation, would perhaps 



74 Solar and Planetary Evolution. 

first cause the balling together of some small liquid or solid 
masses like meteorites ; a series of these meteorites would com- 
mence to revolve in rings, and, attracting one another, would di- 
minish in number and increase in size. The largest of these 
bodies, in a given region, growing larger by accessions from all 
directions, would become more and more heated, by the triple 
cause of converging motion and impact, pressure on their centers, 
and chemical action by the contact of the different elements con- 
stituting them. These would constitute the suns, around which 
the smaller bodies would revolve. 

The result of atoms and meteorites thus converging would be 
to produce in each a spiral motion toward the center, increasing 
both the angular and the direct velocity of each, until the force 
thus generated became powerful enough to balance gravitation, 
when rings would form, ultimately breaking up into planets. 
The outside of each fluid ring, in this case, would move more rap- 
idly than its inside, and the resultant globes would therefore ro- 
tate in the same direction as the central mass. This is the case 
in our solar system, with all the planets inside the orbit of Ura- 
nus. The contrary motion of the two outer planets renders it prob- 
able that there was a projecting part of the primitive nebula, be- 
tween which and the main mass the chief current of rotation found 
its way. Thus, the simple law of gravitation, acting upon neb- 
ulous matter unequally diffused through space, is sufficient to ex- 
plain all the results observed in this admirable system of worlds. 

The President, Dpw Lewis G. Janes: — 

There is evidently a wide field in this discussion for the exercise- 
of the scientific imagination. The point to be noted is, that al- 
though astronomers are not agreed as to the precise method by 
which the suns and worlds have been brought into being, there is 
a very general agreement that it has been effected by natural 
causes — by some process of evolution. 

I desire to call your attention, as relating to a subsequent branch 
of this discussion, to the fact that there are two classes of phi- 
losophical thinkers who can logically take no interest in this even- 
ing's discussion. First, the Positivists, who can see no direct bear- 
ing of astronomical studies upon human welfare, and therefore 
deem them unworthy of our serious attention, classing them with 
those metaphysical and ontological studies which they affect to 
condemn. Secondly, the consistent Idealist, to whom all this vast 
realm of the heavenly spaces — the universe itself — is but a fig- 



Solar and Planetary Evolution. 75 

nient of the imagination, the subjective creation of the individual 
mind or ego. If there is any rational conception of evolution 
possible to the Idealist, it is an evolution which is purely subjec- 
tive — an evolution of thought, not of material things. 

The coming philosophy of evolution, it appears to me, will fur- 
nish a more rational solution of these problems of thought than 
either Positivism or Idealism proposes; — a solution in harmony 
with science, realistic and monistic in its conception of the Ulti- 
mate Reality, and furnishing, therefore, a rational ground of ex- 
planation of those concomitant mental and physical phenomena 
— as of the relation of molecular changes in the brain to conscious- 
ness — which have so long been the despair of science and the su- 
preme enigma of philosophy. 



EVOLUTION OF THE EARTH 



BY 

LEWIS G. JANES 

Author of "A Study of Primitive Christianity," "The Scientific and 
Metaphysical Methods in Philosophy," etc. 



COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED 

IN CONNECTION WITH ESSAY IV. 

Haeckel's History of Creation ; Lyell's Geology ; Le Conte's Ge- 
ology ; Dana's Geology; Winchell's World Life; Clodd's Story of 
Creation; Ramsay's Earth Sculpture; Heilprin's Geological Ev- 
idences of Evolution. 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE EARTH. 



This beautiful home of ours, the earth — how was it 
built ? — ■ who were its builders ? What are the forces that 
have fashioned, and prepared it to become the habitation of 
man ? What has been the history of the earth, since, as a 
molten ball, it was set upon its course around the sun ? 
These are the questions which we are to attempt to answer 
to-night. What the cosmogonist has to tell us of the earth's 
earlier history, we have already learned from the delightful 
lecture of Mr. Serviss. We have seen how, from the prim- 
itive and almost homogeneous fire-mist, the suns and plan- 
ets have been evolved, by a process of differentiation and 
integration, proceeding from the indefinite, incoherent, ho- 
mogeneous, toward the definite, coherent, heterogeneous con- 
dition illustrated by the present state of our solar system, 
thus fulfilling the fundamental law of evolution as laid down 
by Mr. Spencer. f We have learned that while there is some 
difference of opinion as to the exact method by which this 
grand result has been accomplished, there is no doubt in the 
minds of scientific thinkers that the process has been orderly 
and natural from first to last, impelled by the operation 
of laws and forces which are still operating, and whose ac- 
tion is familiar to us, — forces which are resident in the mat- 
ter out of which the universe is builded, — without the aid 
of supernatural interference or miracle. 

How, then, is it with the subsequent history of the earth ? 
We all know the old way of accounting for all this : how, 
as the legend runs, in six days the Lord not only brought 
the world into being, gave it the sun and moon and stars, — 
"the greater light to rule the clay, and the lesser lights to 
rule the night," — but also clothed it with the verdure of 

* Copyright, 1889, by The New Ideal Publishing Company. 

t Evolution involves "the integration of matter and concomitant dissipation 
of motion, attended by a continuous change from indefinite, incoherent homo- 
geneity to definite, coherent heterogeneity of structure and function, through 
successive differentiations and integrations." 



80 Evolution of the Earth. 

grass, herbs and trees, and peopled it with, a myriad forms 
of life, giving all to man as the crowning glory of creation, in- 
to whose nostrils he had breathed the breath of life. The Gen- 
esis story is. a simple, graphic and suggestive legend, which, 
when we have ceased to regard it as a statement of scientific 
truth, we would by no means expunge from the sacred lit- 
erature of the world. It contains some hints of man's prim- 
itive conception of cosmogony, some theory, crude and im- 
perfect as it is, of the way in which life began in the world ; 
but there is not even a suggestion in it of this wonderful 
story of geology about which we are to think to-night. 
The visible heavens, and the surface of the earth 
were known to man in those earlier days ; but of what 
lay within the bosom of the earth, of the forces which had 
upheaved its mountains, excavated its valleys, prepared it 
for the teeming life which he beheld around him, he knew 
practically nothing. The sky to him was a solid firmament ; 
above it, perhaps, the heaven of his imagination, the home 
of his gods. Beneath the earth was the subterranean abode 
of the dead, out of which conception the observation of the 
lurid fires and destructive energy of volcanoes naturally 
helped him subsequently to evolve the notion of a fiery 
hell. 

To the modern mind all this is changed, as by the touch 
of a magician's wand. Where, indeed, can we find a magi- 
cian as potent as Star-eyed Science, which transforms the 
misty nebulas into suns and galaxies, and the rocks beneath 
our feet into pages of sublimest history ? Let us now turn 
to the study of these pages, writ all over with stories of the 
past, and trace therein as well as we may, in the brief time 
allotted to us, the history of the earth. 

Primitive Condition of the Earth's Surface. When 
the surface of the globe had parted with its heat sufficiently 
to allow the vapors of the atmosphere to condense and de- 
scend in rain, it had already become somewhat less homo- 
geneous in form- and structure than it was in its original 
heated condition. The solid crust had become differentiated 
from the fiery core. Cooling was accompanied by contrac- 
tion, which produced inequalities of altitude, though less 
marked than those presented by our present mountain 
ranges. Relatively to present conditions, the solid portion of 
the earth's surface may be said to have presented a homo- 
geneous structure. There was no soil, capable of sustaining 



Evolution of the Earth. 81 

vegetable life, there were no stratified rocks ; — the earth 
was a vast cooling cinder when the forces began to operate 
which have produced the manifold forms of life and beauty 
that now diversify its surface. The great agencies which 
have effected this evolutionary process, may be classed as 
atmospheric, aqueous, igneous and organic. The former 
two, the atmospheric and aqueous, have been leveling and 
apparently destructive ; tearing down rocks and mountains, 
creating sand and soil, filling the valleys, and making the 
rough places of the earth smooth, softening its original 
hardness. The latter, the igneous and organic, have been 
upbuilding and creating agencies, lifting islands and con- 
tinents out of the ocean beds, and elevating mountain 
ranges, thus modifying the climate and productiveness of 
favored localities ; though igneous agencies have sometimes 
operated destructively as well as constructively. 

Action of the Atmospheric and Aqueous Agencies. 
Up to the time when our history opens, the igneous agen- 
cies, together with the great cosmic force of gravity, had 
been mainly influential in moulding the earth, and shaping 
its external form. With the condensation of the watery 
vapors, and their descent upon the earth, the aqueous and 
atmospheric forces became for a time the dominant agencies 
in effecting geological transformations. As the surface of 
the earth was much more level than at present, the con- 
tinents and islands were smaller and fewer in number than 
they are now ; the seas were shallow, but a much greater 
proportion of the earth's surface was covered with water. 
Let us now consider how the atmospheric and aqueous agen- 
cies would operate in transforming the exposed areas of 
land, and what processes would go on in the depths of 
the oceans and lakes, and along the river-courses. 

If we go over to the Palisades on the west bank of the 
Hudson River, we shall observe, as we know, several miles 
of almost perpendicular cliffs, reaching a height at one or 
two points of more than five hundred feet. All along the 
foot of the cliffs, we find masses of broken rock and debris, 
growing from year to year by the falling of portions of the 
rock which are loosened and separated by the action of 
water, snow and frost. This action goes on most rapidly in 
the winter and the spring. The water and snow are blown 
against the cliff, permeating the crevices in the rocks. 
Freezing and expanding, the ice splits the solid mass asun- 



82 Evolution of the Earth. 

der, dislodging portions, and creating larger crevices and 
fissures. Masses of the rock are undermined, and fall, and 
are pulverized by the subsequent weathering. In this way 
rain, snow and frost are continually at work, making soil 
and other forms of detritus from rocks. Some such process 
as this went on during those early periods before life and 
vegetation appeared on the earth ; for life and vegetation 
demand soil, and all the soil which now covers vast areas 
of the earth's surface was originally made by slow processes 
of disintegration and attrition, from the rocks. Only, in 
those primitive times of which we speak, the rocks were 
not the same in character as those of the Palisades — those 
the world over on which the forces of nature are acting to- 
day ; — for these in their turn, or most of them, have been 
formed from the detritus of disintegrated rocks by processes 
hereafter to be described. The earlier soil, as well as the 
atmosphere, was, therefore, of a different character from 
that of to-day, adapted to the production of a coarser, more 
luxuriant, less delicate and beautiful vegetation. If we 
take a section of the material which lies at the bottom of 
any high cliff like the Palisades, or around the bases of 
mountains, we shall find that it is composed of the same ma- 
terial as the cliff or mountain above. Thus, partly by at- 
mospheric agencies, by rain, frost and snow, by the action 
of the sea as it breaks against the cliffs along the shore, 
partly by glaciers — those rivers of ice, which slowly, but 
with tremendous energy, wear their way down from moun- 
tain heights until they melt in the heat of the low-land sun 
— all the soil upon the earth, all the sand upon the deserts, 
all loose material, has been formed. 

Evidencies of glacial action are wide-spread in both Eu- 
rope and America. Glacial drifts — immense boulders, re- 
moved a long way from the native rock from which they 
were separated, often left on the summits of high hills ; peb- 
bles and cobble-stones, worn by attrition, — the loose drift 
and soil of glacial moraines, — may be found all through our 
Northern country. Scratches or grooves made on the sur- 
faces of the rocks by hard stones caught in the ice, and 
dragged along by the force of the trend, indicate the direc- 
tion of the glacier's flow. The region of glacial action may 
be mapped out with accuracy wherever its effects have been 
closely studied. The glacial moraines form many of the 
hills which we now observe in the regions where glaciers 



Evolution of the Earth. 83 

operated. Besides its influence in disintegrating rocks and 
forming soil, glacial action has notably affected the conform- 
ation of the earth's surface in many places, forming hills, 
as we have said, excavating valleys, and even altering the 
natural boundaries of the land and sea. Anglesea Island, 
near Wales, for example, is supposed to have been separa- 
ted from the main-land by the action of a great glacier which 
descended from the mountains of the Lake Region, plough- 
ing its way across the bed of what is now known as the 
Irish Sea, and excavating a narrow channel in the soft rock 
which previously connected Anglesea with the main-land.* 

The soil formed by these various agencies even as we see 
it to-day- — and at no earlier period was it more abundant — 
is, however, scarcely more than a carpet covering here and 
there the hard floor of rock. It is easy, almost anywhere, 
to dig through this carpet ; or if you go down into the coal 
or iron mines of Pennsylvania, or the marble quarries of 
Vermont, you will see how thin is this superficial covering, 
and that underneath it everywhere is the floor of rock. Pro- 
ceeding with our investigations, we will now observe the 
character of this underlying foundation, as it exists to- 
day, and study the processes by which it has been formed. 

Present Condition of the Earth's Interior. Let us 
first say a word, however, as to the present condition of the 
earth's interior. Assuming that the world was originally a 
mass of fiery matter, it was formerly believed that as the 
process of cooling would naturally go on most rapidly on the 
surface, the interior must still be in a molten or fluid con- 
dition. As we descend in mines or quarries beneath the 
earth's surface, we find that the temperature increases about 
100 degrees for every mile of perpendicular descent.! As 
we ascend a mountain, on the other hand, the temperature 
falls. Upon the Alps, in summer, this fall amounts to about 
one degree in 439 feet of perpendicular ascent, and in win- 
ter, one degree in every 290 feet. Even on the equator, 
therefore, if we ascend high enough, we may reach a region 
of perpetual winter. It is only within a narrow range, ver- 
tically, over the surface of the earth that animal or vegeta- 
ble life is possible. The increasing heat as we descend into 



* Ramsey — " Earth-Sculpture." 

t The observed changes vary in different mines from about one degree in 50 
feet to one degree in 75 feet. The deepest descent into the earth at which ex- 
periment has been made is about 3000 feet. 



84 Evolution of the Earth. 

the bowels of the earth, would at first appear to favor the 
theory of the molten condition of the interior. The phe- 
nomena of volcanoes and earthquakes have also been ad- 
duced in support of this theory. At present, however, it is 
the judgment of the best authorities in geological science 
that the inner core of the earth, though intensely hot, is not 
in a liquid, but in a glutinous-solid condition ; — in a pli- 
able state, but much more dense, even, than the solid rocks 
which we see around us. The reason for this conclusion is 
the recognition of the effect produced by the immense pres- 
sure exerted on the earth's interior by the superimposed ma- 
terial. The entire weight of the earth has been estimated 
to be about 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons — a number 
entirely too great for the human imagination to grasp. When 
we reflect that the atmospheric pressure, at the level of the 
sea, amounts to fifteen pounds to each square inch of ex- 
posed surface, we can imagine — or rather, we cannot imag- 
ine — the immense pressure exerted on the inner core of the 
earth by the masses of material above and around it ; suffi- 
cient, no doubt, to compress it to a dense, viscous mass, in 
spite of the expansive power of its extreme heat.* It is 
only where some fissure or flaw in the superimposed strata 
relieves it from a portion of this pressure that it liquefies 
as it comes to the surface in volcanoes. 

Formation - of Stratified Rocks. We have seen how 
the soil is made by various processes of attrition and disin- 
tegration from the rocks. We have now advanced so far in 
our investigations that we can go on to study the manner 
in which the stratified rocks have been formed. The earth's 
floor wherever it is exposed, or as it would appear if this 
carpet of soil and vegetation were removed, is composed of 
a wonderful variety of formations. Think, for example, of 
the number of kinds of stone used in building — granite, 
marble of many varieties, limestone, sandstone, slate, many 
others will occur to you — but these constitute only a por- 
tion of the almost endless variety of rocks which the geol- 
ogist has discovered and named, and all of them have been 
produced by processes of differentiation and integration, 
from the primitive material of the earth's crust. These 
rocks are spread over the earth in a very irregular manner. 
If you were to make a map of them, it would exhibit a most 

* Enormous pressure would be exerted, notwithstanding the variation in the 
force of gravity as we approach the center of the earth. 



Evolution of the Earth. 85 

intricate and diversified appearance. Yet beneath this in- 
finite diversity there is discoverable a certain order and re- 
lationship, so that we may ascertain how these rocks came 
into being, to what geological period they belong, their rel- 
ative age, and we may sometimes determine the canses 
which gave them their present local habitation. The great- 
er portion of the earth's surface is covered by what are 
termed stratified or sedimentary rocks ; that is to say, they 
are rocks which are formed by the action of water, and are 
found deposited in superimposed strata or layers. Some- 
times these strata, in turn, are built up of an immense num- 
ber of thinner laminae, or scales. This formation may 
be observed at many places — as at Portland, Connect- 
icut, in the sandstone quarries, and along the banks of Green 
River in Utah Territory. Often an exposure of twenty feet 
will reveal as many as from sixty to eighty superimposed 
layers. Originally the stratified rocks must have been de- 
posited horizontally. On the edges of cliffs and canons and 
along the sides of quarries and mines, they may sometimes 
be found and studied in this position. Often, however, they 
have been tilted and contorted by the horizontal crushing 
of portions of the earth's surface, so that their edges are ex- 
posed in an inclined, sometimes in a vertical position ; occa- 
sionally they are even tilted over so that their original posi- 
tion is reversed. 

The question for us now to consider is, How were these 
stratified rocks originally formed ? To answer this question, 
we must observe more closely the action of brooks, rivers, 
lakes, and of the ocean. When a current of water is mov- 
ing swiftly along, its force is sufficient to carry with it not 
only the finer particles of sand and soil, but also pebbles of 
considerable size. The larger fragments are first deposited 
in the shallow waters nearest the fountain-head of the 
streams. The finer portions of sand are swept along by the 
current, sinking more slowly and forming layers at the bot- 
tom, while the still smaller particles of sediment travel 
much farther and are deposited very gradually near the 
mouths of the rivers or at the bottoms of larger bodies of 
water. Doubtless many of you have followed the course 
of a mountain stream, as I have done in the Catskills and 
White Mountains, and observed the effects of this process. 
In its earlier course, where the water shoots swiftly along 
over rocks and ledges, what do you find in the bottom of 



86 Evolution of the Earth. 

the stream ? Large rocks and. boulders, perhaps, from 
which the finer material has been washed away ; pebbles 
and coarse gravel, but no fine mud. The finer sediment has 
been carried on to the lower country whither the stream is 
making its way ; and there, if you observe, you will find 
that the bottom of the stream is covered first with fine sand, 
and farther on, as it wends its way slowly through the level 
country, with layers of mud or clay. Thus, everywhere 
along the course of mountain torrents, in brooks and rivers, 
and inland lakes and in the mighty ocean itself, has gone 
on the process of differentiation, breaking up the primeval 
rock, distributing its particles, and preparing for the later- 
stages of the transformation. This action of rivers and 
water-courses was probably somewhat augmented at the close 
of each glacial period, when the vast masses of ice were 
melting, flooding the valleys with water, changing their 
form by the force of the torrents, and everywhere deposit- 
ing new layers of detritus. 

Let us now observe what goes on in this subsequent part 
of the process, — how the work of integration is effected. 
We cannot see what takes place at the bottom of the ocean, 
but we can judge of it by observing similar processes along- 
the banks of our lakes and rivers. At certain periods they 
become dry — the sediment at the bottom is exposed. Or, 
we can watch what occurs where pools of water have been 
formed in depressions of the soil by a heavy rain, after the 
water evaporates. We can cut through a layer of the de- 
posited sediment and observe what it contains. The upper 
portion of it will exhibit the later deposits of silt thrown 
down as the water was ebbing away, mingled with dead 
leaves and sticks and whatever may have been caught in 
the eddies of the stream and held fast as it subsided ; the 
lower part, the coarser gravel. If consolidated into rock, 
this gravel forms a loosely compacted conglomerate, or 
"pudding-stone " ; the finer ' sand the different varie- 
ties of sand-stone, according to the material of which 
it is composed, and the still finer mud and silt, some 
kind of shale or slate. Much of the material of which 
sandstone is made is deposited in shallow water along 
the shores of the sea. When in its original state,, 
before it is dried and solidified, it readily receives the 
impress of whatever is brought in contact with it. If 
a second layer of sand is blown into the impressions 



Evolution of the Earth. 87 

thus formed, filling them and gradually hardening without 
disturbance, the impressions are preserved by the subse- 
quent hardening of the stone. In this manner have been 
preserved the foot-prints of enormous birds and reptiles, 
in the sandstone of the Connecticut valley and elsewhere, 
specimens of which can be seen in the geological cabinets 
at Yale College, at Amherst, and at other places. In the 
lower beds of sandstone we find ripple marks and the im- 
prints of rain drops, showing that the sand of which the 
stone was formed was deposited in shallow water and was 
occasionally left dry and exposed to the action of rain. 
These phenomena may also be observed in the sandstone of 
the Connecticut valley. The same process of depositing 
sediment goes on, on a much larger scale, at the bottom of 
the lakes and of the ocean. There is abundant evidence 
tnat while these layers of comminuted material are being 
deposited, the surface of the earth has been subjected to 
alternate periods of subsidence and elevation. Almost all 
of the land which now forms our continents and islands 
was at one time under water ; while much that is now at 
the bottom of the ocean has, at some period, been dry land. 
By the accumulation of superimposed deposits and the con- 
sequent pressure which their weight brings to bear on the 
lower material, by the elevation of submerged areas, by the 
gradual infiltration of lime and other saturated material,, 
and by subsequent chemical changes, the layers of deposit, 
are slowly hardened into stone. The rocks thus formed 
are naturally not mere solidified heaps of rubbish, but by 
the action of the water they have been differentiated and 
arranged in definite, orderly layers, to each of which the 
geologist gives a name appropriate to its characteristic fea- 
tures. Last summer, on the top of the highest peak of the 
Green Mountains,* I found the characteristic stone to be a 
conglomerate or "pudding-stone," formed of coarse pebbles 
and gravel, loosely packed together, showing that the 
material of which it was formed was originally deposited 
in shallow water along the shore of some ancient sea. A 
similar conglomerate constitutes much of the rock around 
Newport, and along the New England coast at the present 
time. 



* Killington Peak, near Rutland, Vt., is a few feet higher than Mt. Mansfield, 
as indicated by the most recent surveys. 



88 Evolution of the Earth. 

Fossil Remains in the Sedimentary Rocks. Thus 
far we have spoken only of the soil and gravel, the sand, 
mud and pebbles of which the stratified rocks are composed. 
They exhibit, however, other features of great interest to 
the geologist and to the student of evolution. We have 
seen how, in the section of material accumulating by a 
brook-side, or in wayside pools after a long and heavy rain, 
we not only find the mud and sand and gravel of which it 
is composed, but also dry leaves, and sticks and debris of 
various kinds. We have seen also how the impressions of foot- 
prints, rain-drops and ripples are left in the sand and pre- 
served in stone. The same result, on a much grander scale, 
is observable in many of our stratified rocks. If you 
search along the bed of a shallow creek in Chautauqua 
County or elsewhere in the western part of this State, until 
you find or can dislodge a loose piece of shale, or stratified 
rock formed from the mud deposited in the bed of the creek, 
and observe it closely along its line of natural cleavage, 
you will find there the clear impressions of beautiful ferns 
or the shells of aquatic animals, sometimes complete pet- 
rifications of nuts and other remains of vegetable or animal 
life. These are perhaps of comparatively recent formation ; 
but in the stratified rocks along the mountain ranges in the 
interior of continents, which centuries ago were formed at 
the bottom of the ocean, we may discover the fossilized re- 
mains of distant ages, and trace thereby the evolution of 
life in far away geological periods. These remains, though 
mainly, are not exclusively those of marine animals ; they 
include the remains of sea-vegetation, and vegetable pro- 
ducts which grow upon the land are sometimes floated out 
to sea, and dropped among the sedimentary deposits which 
are continually collecting in its bed. These fossil remains, 
as you will readily understand, are of the utmost impor- 
tance in enabling the naturalist to trace the early history of 
the development of vegetable and animal life upon the 
planet. By observation of them, the relative age of each 
geological stratum may frequently be determined. 

The Formation of Organic Rocks. This is not the 
only curious and wonderful result of the study of the strat- 
ified rocks. Sometimes we find that organic material is 
deposited in such quantities as to form strata of great thick- 
ness, composed mainly or exclusively of this material, which 
are ultimately solidified into rocks. Some rocks are, there- 



Evolution of the Earth. 89 

fore, composed entirely, or almost entirely, of organic re- 
mains. Coal, for example, which exists in snch vast quan- 
tities in many portions of our country, especially in Penn- 
sylvania, is almost pure carbon in its chemical composition, 
is deposited in layers like the sedimentary rocks, and is 
really so much vegetation which has been hardened into 
stone. During the Carboniferous era when the material of 
which the coal-beds are formed was produced, the atmos- 
phere was densely loaded with carbonic acid gas and aque- 
ous vapors. Nearly one-half of the earth's crust is said to 
be composed of oxygen and other materials which original- 
ly existed in a gaseous condition. The purification of the 
atmosphere from these vapors and gases, constituted another 
example of differentiation and integration illustrative of 
the law of evolution. 

Beneath a section of a coal-seam, you may often trace 
the blackened lines of the roots of former trees, stretching 
down into the lower stratum of rock or clay. Originally, 
this rock or clay was a bed of soil, in which grew a luxur- 
iant vegetation. Some of the mines in Nova Scotia pre- 
sent as many as seven different layers of forests, which 
have grown during the lapse of ages, each in turn above 
others, until at last, all have been consolidated into coal. 
Examine a thin piece of soft coal under a microscope, and 
you may often find millions of little sporangia, or seed ves- 
sels, — the product of a kind of moss which was pressed 
into beds of peat, and then hardened into coal. In the peat 
bogs of Ireland, in our own country, and elsewhere, this 
process is still going on, though much more slowly than 
during the Carboniferous period, laying, possibly, the foun- 
dations of coal-beds for the use of future generations. In 
the rock underneath or above the coal-beds, you may some- 
times discover fossil forms of the trees and larger plants 
out of which coal is formed. Some of these trees are of 
curious conformation, having leaves growing directly from 
their trunks, instead of on limbs and branches. The scars 
left by these leaves when they dropped off are still visible 
in the petrifications. 

Not only are stratified rocks thus formed out of vegetable 
material, they are also built up out of animal remains. 
Last summer, during my annual vacation, I spent a delight- 
ful fortnight with a congenial comrade, walking through 
the beautiful hill-country of Western Massachusetts and 



90 Evolution of the Earth. 

Vermont. In the latter State, we visited several of the 
famous marble quarries, which furnish its people with one- 
of their leading industries. In one of these quarries, at 
West Rutland, my friend descended three hundred feet be- 
low the surface, — farther than I cared to climb in an Aug- 
ust day. On either side through the whole distance were 
continuous layers of marble, the foundations of which had 
been built up during the patient centuries out of minute 
organic remains — the skeletons, so to speak, or the shells 
rather, of once living animals. Subsequently, the limestone 
thus formed was structurally metamorphosed by the action 
of heat,* so that the evidences of organic life were destroyed. 
How much deeper the vein extended, I do not know. This 
formation, in many places, reaches a depth of 2000 feet. 
These vast beds of limestone and marble, therefore, now 
just beneath the sloping sides of the Green Mountains, sev- 
eral hundred feet above the level of the sea, and elsewhere 
widely distributed over the earth, were formed of deposits 
which originally lay on the very bed of the ocean. How 
can we estimate the time required to effect such a transform- 
ation ? The deposit, through slow-creeping ages, of the 
shells, their consolidation into rock, the change of structure 
by the action of heat, if the material be marble, the grad- 
ual upheaval of the ocean-bed, the elevation of the moun- 
tain ranges, the slow accumulation of soil above the rock ; 
— verily, "the more thou searchest, the more shalt thou 
wonder." The great Pyramids of Egypt, the oldest and 
most enduring products of human art, are built of lime- 
stone. They embody the results of the patient energy of 
untold millions of living creatures, besides their human 
architects and builders. 

Take a little ooze from the bottom of the oc6an, dry it 
and examine it through a microscope, and you will discover 
that what appeared to be small grains of dust, are so many 
minute shells — some of them broken, but many of them 
perfectly formed, all of them of most delicate and symmet- 
rical proportions. These shells are called Foramenifera. 
They are crowded together, millions upon millions of them, 

* The Vermont marble is a crystalline limestone, from which all direct ev- 
idences of animal remains have been destroyed ; it is assigned, however, to the 
lower Silurian or Cambrian division of stratified rocks, and has been identified 
as belonging to the Chazy limestones of that geological period, of organic ori- 
gin. Some crystalline limestones may have been formed by chemical processes, 
without organic intervention. 



Evolution of the Earth,. 91 

in the bottom of the sea, accumulating century after cen- 
tury, forming a deposit which, as it increases, will cover 
and enclose the shells and remains of larger creatures, reach- 
ing perhaps in time a depth of several hundred feet. Now, 
if we take a piece of common chalk, and examine it through 
the microscope, we shall detect shells and the remains of 
animals very similar to those we found in the ooze. The 
chalk, indeed, is entirely made up of these organic remains. 
We know that it is now found in immense cliffs, hundreds 
of feet in height, at Dover and elsewhere in England, in 
France and in Sweden, and in other parts of the world. 
Flint nodules are also formed in chalk-beds, the diatoms 
which constitute their nuclei separating from the Foramin- 
ifera and drawing to themselves concretions of silica and 
iron. Such examples as these offer conclusive evidence to 
the scientific mind of the fact that immense areas of land, 
even high cliffs and lofty mountains, were once situated at 
the bottom of the sea. None but the grossly ignorant 
would now argue, as it was seriously argued in no very dis- 
tant period of the past, that God created these semblances 
of former life where they are now found, and that they af- 
ford no proper evidence of the long duration of geological 
periods. It remained for Christian writers and theologians 
as late as the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth and eight- 
eenth centuries, and even of the nineteenth century, to 
soberly propose this absurd hypothesis. The Pagan scholars 
of olden times had noted the evidence of marine shells 
on mountain tops and at a distance from the sea, and right- 
ly concluded that these facts were indicative of former 
changes in the earth's surface, — that the rocks in which 
they were found had originally been submerged beneath the 
ocean. Such was the judgment of scholars like Pythago- 
ras, Plato, Aristotle, Strabo, Seneca, and Pliny. Our six- 
teenth century Christians, however, denominated such phe- 
nomena "sports of nature," or attributed them to "the plas- 
tic force of nature," and dated them from the original 
creation of the world. Even Voltaire, who attempted an 
explanation in accordance with reason, thought that these 
shells had been left on the mountains by the Crusaders, as 
they marched to the Ploly Land, — being the refuse of their 
repasts. It took a full century to explode this idea of the 
'•plastic force of nature," and a century and a half longer 
to show the absurdity of the hypothesis that they were 



92 Evolution of the Earth. 

left where they are now found by the subsiding waters of 
Noah's deluge. The great mind of Leonardo da Vinci was 
the first in the later Christian times to propound the true 
scientific theory of their origin ; and he and later 
scholars of the Italian renaissance were the real fathers of 
the modern science of geology. 

Continents and islands are even now gradually rising 
from the ocean ; mountain ranges have been differentiated 
and integrated by processes of gradual elevation. Else- 
where the solid land is yielding to the encroachments of 
the sea. We all realize the very visible effect of this de- 
structive action of the waves, as it goes on from year to 
year at Coney Island. It is said that Montauk Point, at the 
eastern end of Long Island, is two or three miles west of 
where it formerly was, as indicated by indisputable geolog- 
ical evidence. The coast around New York, in many places, 
is washed away at the rate of two or three feet a year ; and 
in the Eastern part of the continent the encroachment of 
the sea progresses at a much more rapid rate. The rate 
varies in different localities according to the conditions of 
exposure, and the hard or yielding character of the rock 
which constitutes the substratum of the soil. The sand, 
which forms the beaches so attractive to the seaside visitor 
in summer, has all been made by the gradual grinding down 
of the silicate rock by the attrition of the waves, and by 
other natural processes. On the other hand, the rivers are all 
the time at work carrying material into the sea, and thus 
gradually raising its level. If no other agencies than the 
destructive ones were at work, it has been estimated that 
the sea, in time, would wear its way to the center of the 
largest continents. I have said that continents and islands 
were gradually rising from the sea, at the same time that 
these destructive forces are operating elsewhere. I did not 
refer exclusively to those slow processes of elevation, of the 
operation of which we are scarcely aware, though careful 
experiment has determined that they are still in progress ;. 
but also to the even more wonderful work of the coral 
polyps, which is proceeding in the warmer parts of the 
globe. The southern end of our Florida peninsula, for ex- 
ample, is the product of these little creatures. In the South 
Pacific ocean, coral reefs and islands have already risen 
above the level of the sea, and are crowned with luxuriant 



Evolution of the Earth. 93 

vegetation. If the work of the coral polyps should con- 
tinue, undisturbed by counteracting agencies, these little 
creatures might ultimately build a continent live or six 
thousand miles long, and twenty -five hundred miles in width 
— a continent larger than North America. It has been 
shown, however, by Professors Le Conte and Dana, that that 
portion of the earth's crust is subsiding so rapidly that no 
such result can be reasonably anticipated.* 

The Formation of Igneous Rocks. We have already 
spoken of the original rock on which the present diversi- 
fied structure of the earth's surface was founded, as being 
of igneous origin. It is probable that none of this prim- 
itive formation is now anywhere visible. Yet everywhere, 
underneath the stratified rocks, lies a formation of gneiss 
or granite, or other form of igneous rock. These are all, 
doubtless, what are termed metamorphic rocks, which, what- 
ever their original character have been structurally changed 
and dislocated by the action of heat and the chemis- 
try of nature. The granite and crystalline rocks, such 
as we find dominant in the White Mountain system, 
and to some extent in the Green Mountains and else- 
where in the 'Northern part of America, have been 
formed by igneous agencies, under the immense pres- 
sure of superimposed masses of rock. By lateral pres- 
sure, due to the gradual contraction of the earth's 
crust, and by the slow movements of depression and eleva- 
tion which are constantly operating, cracks or " faults " 
have been formed in the stratified rocks, through which the 
granite and igneous matter beneath has been pushed up and 
extruded while in a molten state. Earthquakes sometimes re- 
sult from this "faulting" or disarrangement of the strata. 
These movements are doubtless due, primarily, to the heat 
of the earth's interior, and secondarily, to the consequent 
process of cooling and secular contraction. Volcanoes, also, 
are constantly throwing out lava, and other igneous pro- 
ducts, thus to a certain extent modifying the earth's sur- 
face. This influence, at present, is infinitesimal compared 
with the other agencies which we have noted ; though the 
number of extinct volcanoes, and other evidences of their 
former action, indicate that in previous ages of the world's 
history, it was a much more active modifying force than at 

* See Le Conte's " Geology." 



94 Evolution of the Earth. 

present.* The most remarkable volcanic irruption of re- 
cent times was that which occurred on August 26 and 27, 
1883, at the island of Krakatoa in the Straits of Sunda, 
midway between Sumatra and Java. Streams of volcanic 
dust were thrown to an estimated height of 17 miles, and 
more than a cubic mile of material was expelled from the 
volcanic crater. Accurate scientific investigations, con- 
ducted under the authority of the Royal Society of England, 
have determined that the air-waves, whose vibrations were 
originated by this volcanic action, travelled from Krakatoa 
to its antipodes around the entire earth not less than seven 
times. The automatic records of the barometer at Green- 
wich near London responded to their influence six or seven 
tinies, and similar effects were reported from Berlin, St. 
Petersburgh, Valencia, and elsewhere. People ninety-six 
miles away, on the island of Sumatra, were aroused from 
their sleep by the concussions ; the sea-waves created there- 
by destroyed numerous villages, and 36,380 lives on Java 
and Sumatra. Incredible as it may appear, the noise was 
heard at Macassa, Celebes Island, 969 miles away, at the 
island of Borneo, 1116 miles away, at Victoria Plains, West 
Australia, 1700 miles away, at Chagos Island, 2267 miles 
away, and even at Podiguez, 2968 miles away. The peo- 
ple at Daly Waters, South Australia, 2023 miles away, were 
awakened by the noise, which appeared like the sound of 
blasting rock. The dust and powdered pumice thrown out 
of the crater, made the entire circuit of the world more 
than three times before it settled below the region of the 
great atmospheric currents, and was the cause of those won- 
derful red-sunsets which we observed during so many 
months subsequent to the occurrence of these phenomena. 
Although this irruption left no great change in the super- 
ficial appearance of the earth outside of the little island 
where it occurred, we may well imagine, in contemplating its 
effects, that volcanic action formerly played a notable and 
important part in the phenomena of geological evolution.! 



* The crater of an extinct volcano has very recently been discovered at Red 
Mountain, near Birmingham, Ala. Evidences of former volcanic action are 
also found in North Carolina, New Hampshire, and at various places along the 
Appalachian system of mountains. 

t The phenomena at Krakatoa are described in detail in a quarto volume of 
nearly 500 pages, recently issued by the Royal Society of England. There is also 
a brief but interesting account, condensed from these reports, in an article in 
a recent number of the Contemporary Her lew, by Sir R. S. Ball, L.L.D., F.R.S. 



Evolution of the Earth. 95 

It was formerly the accepted opinion that the great 
changes on the earth's surface had been mainly brought 
about by these cataclysmic agencies. Sir Charles Lyell, 
however, and the leading geologists of the modern school, 
have made it clear that the great geological changes have 
been produced slowly, by gradual processes of subsidence 
and elevation, and not by earthquakes and volcanic action. 
Compared with the slow evolutionary movements of Na- 
ture, cataclysm or revolution has played but a small part 
in our mundane affairs. Volcanic action and earthquakes 
are merely the culminations of orderly and gradual an- 
terior processes. 

I cannot do better than to close this branch of the 
subject with a quotation from Professor Le Conte, a master 
in this field of thought and investigation : — 

"There was a time (not many decades ago) when all 
things, the origin of which transcends our ordinary expe- 
rience, were supposed to have originated suddenly and with- 
out natural process — to have been made at once, out of 
hand. There was a time when, for example, mountains 
were supposed to have been made at once, with all their di- 
versified forms, of beetling cliffs, and thundering water- 
falls, or gentle slopes and smiling valleys, just as we now 
find them. But now we know that they have become so 
■only by a very gradual process, and are still changing under 
our very eyes. In a word, they have been formed by a pro- 
cess of evolution. We know now the date of mountain- 
births ; we trace their growth, maturity, decay and death; 
and find even, as it were, the fossil bones of extinct moun- 
tains in the crumpled strata of their former places. There 
was a time when continents and seas, gulfs, bays and rivers, 
were supposed to have originated at once, substantially as 
we now see them. Now we know that they have been 
changing throughout all geological time, and are still chang- 
ing. Not, however, changing back and forth in any direc- 
tion indifferently and without goal, but gradually changing 
from less perfect to more perfect condition, with more and 
more complex inter-relations — i. e., by a process of evolu- 
tion. There was a time when rocks and soil were supposed 
to have been always rocks and soil ; when soils were regard- 
ed as an- original clothing made on purpose to hide the rocky 
nakedness of the new-born earth. God clothed the earth 
.so, and there was an end. Now we know that rocks rot 



96 Evolution of the Earth. 

down to soils ; soils are carried down and deposited as sed- 
iments; and sediments consolidate as rocks — the same 
materials being worked over and over again, passing through 
all these changes many times in the history of the earth. 
In a word, there was a time when it was thought that the 
earth, with substantially its present form, configuration and 
climate, was made at once out of hand, as a fit habitation 
for man and animals. Now we know that it has been chang- 
ing, preparing, becoming what it is by a slow process, 
through a lapse of time so vast that the mind sinks ex- 
hausted in the attempt to grasp it. It has become what it 
is now by a process of evolution. We may, therefore, con- 
fidently generalize — we may assert without fear of con- 
tradiction that all inorganic forms, without exception, have 
originated by a process of evolution."* 

Let us briefly recapitulate the forces which have been 
active in the evolution of the earth : — 

I. Igneous. 

a. The formation of the primitive rock-crust by cooling. 

b. The formation of crystalline rocks under pressure. 

c. Volcanic action, producing pumice, lava, basalt, por- 

phyry, tuff, etc. 

d. Action of geysers, or hot springs. 

To these should be added those chemical processes, the 
operation of which was largely determined by conditions of 
heat and pressure. 

II. Atmospheric. 

a. Direct influence of wind-pressure. 

b. Disintegrating influence of snow and ice. 

c. Glacial action. 

d. Precipitation of atmospheric gases. 

e. Expansion and contraction by changes in temper- 

ature. 

III. Aqueous. 

a. Direct action of rain on the rock. 

b. Action of rivers in distributing sedimentary matter. 

c. Disintegrating action of ocean-waves. 

d. Operation of large bodies of water in facilitating 

the formation of sedimentary deposits. . 



*" Evolution and its Relation to Religious Thought," fcy Professor Joseph 
Le Conte. D. Appleton & Co. 



Evolution of the Earth. 97 

IV. Organic. 

a. Vegetable deposits, forming peat-bogs and coal-beds. 

b. Shell deposits of extinct animals, forming limestone 

and marble. 

c. Foraminif era deposits, forming chalk-beds and marl. 

d. Action of coral polyps, forming coral reefs, islands, 

and peninsulas. 

The Order of Geological Succession. Subsequent 
to the period of the primeval igneous rocks, geologists re- 
cognize a succession of four great eras, three of them being- 
divided and sub-divided into subordinate periods of varia- 
ble duration. Tabularly represented, in out-line merely,, 
these geological time-divisions appear as follows : 

I. Azoic or Archcean. 

II. Palceozoic, or Primary. 

a. Cambrian. 

b. Silurian. 

c. Devonian. 

d. Carboniferous. 

e. Permian. 

III. Mesozoic, or Secondary. 

a. Triassic. 

b. Jurassic. 

c. Cretaceous. 

IV. Cenozoic, or Tertiary. 

a. Eocene. 

b. Miocene. 

c. Pliocene. 

d. Post-Pliocene. 

e. Recent, (Psychozoic.) 

Tracing the order of Geological succession, in the lower 
non-sedimentary rocks, we, of course, find no remains of 
organic life. Neither have any been discovered in the sed- 
imentary rocks of the earliest or Azoic period, though it is 
not improbable that early fragile forms may have existed, 
that left no perceptible trace. The subsequent order of geo- 
logical succession is determined mainly by the order of su- 
perposition of the strata, — on the logical supposition that 
the undermost stratified rocks are the oldest. As we go^ 
back toward the older rocks, we find that the fossils be- 
come more and more dissimilar to those forms of an- 



98 Evolution of the Earth. 

irnal and vegetable life with which we are now famil- 
iar. So many changes have happened since the older 
strata were deposited that we do not always find them 
in their order of succession. Gaps sometimes occur: 
older rock has been forced up until it overlaps strata of a 
later formation. Apart from the character of the rock itself, 
we have in such instances the remains of organic life, which 
enable us to identify its proper place in the order of succes- 
sion. In this way we can identify rocks of the same geolog- 
ical period, on different continents and in diverse parts of 
the world. In general, however, the forms of life indicated 
by fossil remains in given geological strata in America, are 
somewhat older than those found in corresponding strata in 
the Eastern hemisphere.* Palseontologically, as well as geo- 
logically, America appears to be the oldest continent. We 
are also sometimes enabled to trace the history of the spread 
of the fauna and flora from one part of the world to another. 
In the Samoan Islands and other islands of the Pacific ocean, 
the only indigenous mammal is a species of bat — the only 
mammal which could travel far from its native habitat, over 
leagues of ocean, — a significant fact from the stand-point 
of evolution. In the Arctic regions of the Eastern and West- 
ern continents the flora are in many instances identical, or 
of the same species. This is not because the seeds or plants 
were carried from one continent to the other across the ocean 
and thus propagated, but, as geology assures us, because the 
two countries are in near proximity — practically almost 
united by the presence of vast fields of ice, while in a for- 
mer period they doubtless constituted one continent. All 
the horses now living in America are derived from imported 
stock. History tells us of the wonder of the aboriginal in- 
habitants of this continent when they first saw the European 
invaders on horse-back. Yet fossil horses are found in the 
Post-Pliocene remains in this country, and Professor Marsh 
has discovered in our Western territories the ancestors of 
the horse — the Pliohippus, the Protohippus or Hipparion, 
the Miohippus or Anchitherium, the Mesohippus, Orohip- 
pus or Hyracotherium, and the Eohippus, in the geo- 
logical remains of the Upper Pliocene, Lower Pliocene, 
Upper and Lower Miocene, and Upper and Lower Eocene 
periods, respectively, which in their successive order, 

* " Introduction and Succession of Vertebrate Life in America," toy Prof. O. 
•C. Marsh. Pace 24. 



Evolution of the Earth. 

b c d e 



99 




Orohippus 
Eocene. 



Diagram illustrating the gradual evolution of the horse-family (after Pro- 
fessor Marsh), — kindly furnished by Messrs. D. Appleton & Co. Throughout 
the series, vindicates fore -foot; b, hind-foot; c, fore-arm; d, shank; e, molar, 
side-view ; / and g, grinding surface of upper and lower molars. The Eohip- 
pus of the Lower Eocene, and the Phenacodus (Cope), are not represented in_ 
this diagram. 



100 Evolution of the Earth. 

in the judgment of Professor Huxley, furnish an il- 
lustration of the truth of the doctrine of biological evolu- 
tion, which renders it as well established as is the Coper- 
nican theory of the motions of the heavenly bodies. Beyond 
the Eohippus, an animal with four toes and an aborted fifth 
on its fore-feet, we have the Phenacodus,* a five-toed plan- 
tigrade animal, which is regarded as the original progenitor 
of the horse-family. The ancestors of the European horse, 
which is supposed to have been introduced from Asia or 
Northern Africa, have also been discovered in the Tertiary 
deposits of the Eastern continents ; but the pedigree of the 
horse is thus far most continuous in America. Strange to 
say, the line of ancestry of the European horse, unlike that 
of the American horse, has been traced back to the Palseothe- 
rium, also an ancestor of the tapir, and a connection of the 
pachyderms. It becomes an interesting question for future 
Palaeontologists, whether the horse has really arisen by in- 
dependent lines of succession from two different stocks, or 
whether his original home was not rather in America, 
whence he or his ancestors passed to Asia through the Arc- 
tic regions, when the two continents were united, and a mild- 
er climate in the Polar regions permitted such migrations. 
The development of this fruitful topic of the bearing of geo- 
logical studies upon the question of biological evolution, 
belongs rather to the treatment of the evolution of vegetal 
and animal life. It is alluded to here merely to show how 
palaeontology assists the geologist in accurately determin- 
ing the order of geological succession, and corrects or sus- 
tains his conclusions in regard to those changes in the 
formation of continents and oceans, which have been going 
on since the world began. 

It is proper for us to say here, however, that the succes- 
sion of organic remains, in the geological strata, though not 
complete, is, so far as discovered, precisely what it should 
be to sustain the doctrine of organic evolution. The lowest 
orders of archaic life have not been identified in the strat- 
ified rocks ; they probably never will be. They were too 
fragile — too easily destroyed by the operation of natural 
agencies. The lowest remains which we find are those of 



* See " Origin of the Fittest," by Prof. E. D. Cope. A skeleton of the Phe- 
nacodus may be found in Prof. Cope's Collection, in Philadelphia. 



Evolution of the Earth. 101 

the Eozoon Canadense* and Lingula of the Potsdam sand- 
stone, on the borders of the Azoic period — the former, as 
claimed by Professor Dawson, possibly over the usually re- 
cognized line. How much below the Cambrian rocks life orig- 
inally appeared, we do not know. Evidences, if they ever 
existed, have been destroyed by igneous agencies or other- 
wise. As we follow the scale of geological succession along 
up from the era in which these forms appeared, there are 
many " missing links " it is true, absent from our stone vol- 
umes, but many exceedingly suggestive links which are not 
missing. The pedigree of the horse constitutes one such 
indication, most interesting and instructive. Some of the 
later reptiles, also, have many of the characteristics of birds 
and mammals. The earliest birds were strangely reptilian 
in their characters. Some of them have teeth like reptiles 
and mammals. The evolution of life from the fish to the 
reptilian stage is indicated by the peculiarities of the re- 
mains of fish and reptiles belonging to the Carboniferous 
era. An outline of the order of zoological succession, as 
determined by the remains found in the rocks through the 
different geological periods, is suggestive of the complete- 
ness of the phylogenetic proof of the doctrine of organic 
evolution. 

Duration of Geological Periods. That an enormous 
length of time must have been occupied by these processes 
of geological evolution is so evident as to demand no argu- 
ment. A definite estimate of this time, however, is exceed- 
ingly difficult. It may be said, in general, that the tenden- 
cy at the present day is to diminish somewhat the enormous 
periods of duration which have been assumed by modern 
geologists as necessary for the production of the observed 
geological changes. The time necessary for the Falls of 
Niagara to wear their way back from Lake Ontario to their 
present position has been variously estimated as 36,000, 
00,000, 100,000, even 200,000 years. Sir Charles Lyell es- 
timated that they were wearing their way on an average of 
about a foot a year. But a very recent estimate reduces 
the time to 7,000 years. t Take even the last figures, which 



* Geologists are not all agreed that the Eozoon of Professor Dawson is of or- 
ganic origin. 

t Niagara Falls must have originated since the most recent Glacial period, in 
a comparatively modern era, as the drift deposits everywhere underlie the river- 
deposits between the Falls and Lake Ontario. 



102 Evolution of the Earth. 

are doubtless too small, and imagine, if you can, the time- 
required for the Colorado river to wear its way down to its 
present bed at the bottom of a canon 5,000 feet, in many 
places, below the level of the surrounding plain, through a 
rock harder than that of the Niagara chasm, and without 
the initiative force of the tremendous cataract, for a distance 
of six or seven hundred miles ! This is one of the meas- 
uring sticks by which the estimate of the duration of geolog- 
ical periods is made. All such estimates, however, must be 
very imperfect guesses at the truth. The thickness of geo- 
logical strata varies in different localities. The effect of 
local disturbances is such as to render it difficult to base an 
accurate estimate of time on such data as are obtainable. 
We can only say that immense, practically inconceivable 
periods of duration were requisite for the production of the 
observed effects. The present age of the earth has been va- 
riously estimated at from 25,000,000 to 100,000,000 years 
— the latter are Professor Geikie's figures. I suppose Ave 
might as well try to imagine one period as the other — both 
are so long as to be incomprehensible by the human mind. 
As Professor Le Conte affirms, such a period constitutes a 
practical eternity. 

In conclusion, let me refer again to Le Conte's inspiring 
Avords : — " Until the birth of modern astronomy the intel- 
lectual space-horizon of the human mind was bounded sub- 
stantially by the dimensions of our earth : sun, moon and 
stars, being but inconsiderable bodies circulating at a little 
distance about the earth, and for our behoof. Astronomy 
Avas then but the geometry of the curious lines traced by 
those wandering fires on the concave blackboard of heaA T en. 
With the first glance through a telescope, the phases of Ve- 
nus and the satellites of Jupiter revealed clearly to the 
mind the existence of other worlds besides and like our own. 
In that moment the idea of infinite space, full of worlds 
like our own, Avas for the first time completely realized, and 
became thenceforth the heritage of man. In that moment 
the intellectual horizon of man was infinitely extended. 
So also, until the birth of geology, about the beginning of 
the present century, the intellectual time-horizon of the hu- 
man mind was bounded by six thousand years. The dis- 
covery about that time of animal remains, all wholly dif- 
ferent from those now inhabiting the earth, revealed the 
existence of other time fauna besides our OAvn ; and the idea 



Evolution of the Earth. 103 

of infinite time, of which the life of humanity is but an 
epoch, was then born in the mind of man ; and again the in- 
tellectual horizon of man was infinitely extended. These 
two were the grandest ideas, and their introduction the 
grandest epochs, in the intellectual history of man " 

When we note that all these processes of geological change 
have tended to diversify the earth's surface, — to produce 
variety in scenery, in climate, in vegetation, in fauna, — 
when we see them followed by steadily increasing integra- 
tion of structure and individuality of feature, in landscape 
and in organic life, we cannot avoid the conclusion that the 
entire process of geological change has been one of evolution, 
obedient to the mandates of constant and invariable natural 
laws. And if we take the simplest integral product of this 
evolutionary process — a pebble from the sea-shore, or a 
mote of dust floating in the sun-kissed air — and trace back 
the causes which operated to bring it into its present condi- 
tion ; if we follow it through the action of all the forces, 
igneous, aqueous, atmospheric, that formed and disinte- 
grated the primeval rock, back to the sun, whose heat set in 
motion all these terrestial agencies ; back again, to the ac- 
tion of the cosmic forces that formed the worlds and sent 
them spinning around their central orbs, — back still, to the 
distant systems of worlds, which, through the action of 
gravity, balance and sustain each other in their several 
courses through the infinite regions of space, — then, indeed, 
shall we realize that it takes the Infinite and Absolute fully 
to explain the smallest things. We shall see that the Per- 
sian aphorism but clothes the sober truth of science in poetic 
form, when it affirms that " God maketh of evert/ atom of 
the Universe a mirror, and fronteth each ivith his perfect 
face." 



104 Evolution of the Earth. 



ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 

Pkofessor W. Le Conte Stevens: — 

Evolution in its application to the genesis of our earth is a sub- 
ject which now has but little, if any, theological bearing. We 
all know the mental agony through which Hugh Miller passed, in 
the vain effort to reconcile the biblical and geological accounts of 
the early development of our planet, the final effect of which was 
to deprive the world of an enthusiastic geologist, who became 
literally a victim of his own piety. In this discussion, the geol- 
ogists won the field. To-day there are few pulpits in which the 
effort is made to teach literally what is contained in the first chap- 
ter of Genesis. The reconciliation attempted to-day rests upon a 
wide latitude in the use of language, and an inexactness of state- 
ment which is wonderfully comforting to those who can be satis- 
fied with it. There is no such middle-ground, however, for us to 
accept, no reconciliation for our comfort. We must accept the 
Mosaic account exactly as it was written, or reject it utterly. For, 
if not inspired, it is of no more value than any other piece oi 
mythology. With all veneration for the noble teachings contained 
in the pages of the bible, we kindly but firmly disregard it in every 
case where it is found open to attack on historical or scientific 
grounds. 

But any conclusion that we may reach about the early develop- 
ment of the earth, even on a scientific basis, is necessarily largely 
speculative. It is impossible to insist too strongly upon the im- 
portance of limiting the intensity of our convictions, and of pro- 
claiming that what we accept is merely an expression of probabil- 
ity. We accept the probability expressed in the nebular hypothe- 
sis, that the initial condition of our earth was that of a hot, 
gaseous mass, containing all the elements now known to chemis- 
try; and that every law of nature now based on the evidence of 
observation or experiment has been in force throughout the indef- 
inite past. It does not seem necessary to assume any universal 
diffusion of initial heat. Let the law of gravitation be granted, 
and that matter was widely diffused in an indefinitely tenuous 
condition, at a temperature as low as that now pervading inter- 
planetary space, several hundred degrees lower than that of our 



Evolution of the Earth. 105 

coldest winter weather. The assumption of absolute uniformity 
of diffusion would be contrary to all the evidences at present 
around us. If a single point is even infinitesimally denser than 
the matter surrounding it, this becomes a center of attraction. 
The aggregation of matter involves the arrest of motion; for par- 
ticles moving toward the center are there stopped, but their en- 
ergy is not destroyed. Mass motion is changed into that motion 
of molecules which is manifested as temperature. The greater 
the aggregation, the higher is the resulting temperature. Badia- 
tion also begins as soon as temperature is raised, but the rates of 
increase and loss of heat are not necessarily the same. Even af- 
ter there ceases to be any sensible increase of matter aggregated 
from without, that which has been brought together tends to set- 
tle upon the center; and this continues the transformation of en- 
ergy already manifested. The ill-defined mass of gas would 
gradually become viscous, until a condition of solidity would be 
reached, first at either the center where the pressure is greatest, 
or at the surface where radiation is fastest; most probably at the 
center. We have thus great central density with intense heat; 
around this the solid passes by insensible gradations into a vis- 
cous, tarry envelope, almost equally hot; this in turn as we pass 
outward becomes less viscous until a condition is reached like the 
average of what we now call liquids; but differing in this respect, 
that at first there is no well defined boundary between it and the 
densely gaseous materials which surround it. These in turn be- 
come thinner as we pass outward, the thinnest of all, hydrogen, 
forming the exterior envelope, which is devoid of any distinct 
bounding surface. Throughout the entire mass the heat is so great 
as to prevent molecules of different kinds from coming within the 
range of chemical attraction. They are all beyond the limit of 
chemical association. But gravity is operative, and hence the ele- 
ments of highest specific gravity, such as platinum, gold, mer- 
cury, etc., tend to aggregate at the center, while nitrogen, oxygen, 
and hydrogen remain near the boundary. We would thus have 
a nucleus of heavy, unoxidized material. 

Cooling by radiation goes on most rapidly at the outer surface, 
so that here is the first place at which chemical activity begins to 
come into play. Hydrogen and oxygen unite to produce steam, 
but this is far beyond its condensing point, and is separated from 
outer cold space by a bed of still uncombined hydrogen. Long 
remaining in the gaseous state, it slowly penetrates downward by 
diffusion, mixing thus with the heavier nitrogen below. Sulphur 
also unites with oxygen, and chlorine with hydrogen, forming sul- 



106 Evolution of the Earth. 

phurous and hydrochloric acid gases ; the former soon takes into- 
composition the steam already formed, and sulphuric acid in great 
quantities is produced. Acid vapors therefore constitute a large 
and important part of the hot atmosphere. Beneath these the 
oxygen unites also with calcium, magnesium, silicon, aluminium, 
potassium, sodium, etc., producing a dry solid crust as a boundary 
between the hot liquid or viscous matter within and the hot mix- 
ture of gases without. It is well known that silica at very high 
temperature behaves like an acid ; it would therefore form sil- 
icates with the alkalies and alkaline earths just named. The free 
hydrogen is in time all used up in combination, and the cooling 
water-gas at the outside is reduced to its condensing point. It 
forms an envelope of clouds such as now float in the atmosphere 
of Jupiter and Saturn. With still further cooling these become 
precipitated as mist, which descends into the hotter regions below 
and becomes charged with acid. Reaching the solid crust some of 
it is re-vaporized with more or less explosive violence, and carries 
back to the outside the heat which has been imparted to it from 
the crust. At the same time the acids are largely taken up by the 
earthy and alkaline silicates, producing sulphates and chlorides 
of these, while silica is precipitated. The silicates of iron and 
aluminium are not easily decomposed; hence the clays remain af- 
ter the rest have been broken up into sulphates, chlorides and pre- 
cipitated silica. 

The law of diffusion of gases, though it never ceases to be op- 
erative, is generally masked by other laws. The process just de- 
scribed implies convection on an immense scale, so that diffusion 
may be largely thrown out of account after the first stages of con- 
densation are passed. Acid rain-storms continually recur, assum- 
ing a degree of constancy and violence far in excess of anything 
conceivable at the earth's surface to-day. Meanwhile the cooling 
earth has been contracting unequally over different areas, accord- 
ing to the variation in conductivity of its materials for heat. 
Some large areas of the crust thus become regions of depression 
in comparison with those of less conductivity. When the sur- 
face temperature of the solid falls below the condensing point 
of the acid vapors, the rain falling on the hot ground dissolves all 
soluble compounds, and gathers into the great depressions, form- 
ing oceans of water that are from the outset strongly charged with 
salts. The leaching process continues even to the present day; 
but it is highly improbable that the saltness of the ocean, or even 
of inland seas, has been appreciably modified by the addition of 



Evolution of the Earth. 107 

salts soaked out from the neighboring soil within the present geo- 
logical period. 

One of the very widely diffused elements existing first in the 
gaseous state is carbon. Early in the evolutionary history of the 
earth, oxygen probably began to unite with it, forming carbon di- 
oxide gas, which acted upon the exposed masses, forming carbon- 
ates of the alkalies and alkaline earths. The carbonates of cal- 
cium and magnesium are soluble only with great difficulty, while 
sulphates and chlorides of the alkalies are leached out easily. 
Hence the bottoms of the oceans are now found to consist largely 
of impalpably fine sand, calcium-carbonate and magnesium-car- 
bonate, independently of the subsequent production of calcium- 
carbonate by organic agencies or sedimentation. The work of the 
coral polyp is trifling in comparison with the chemical agencies 
operating long before conditions were such as to permit animal life 
of any kind. The subsequent crumpling of these areas is sufficient 
to account for the great mountain masses of primitive unstratified 
limestones and dolomites now so abundant. Crystalline marble 
could never have owed its origin to organic agencies. 

This then, in connection with the testimony of the stratified 
rocks, seems to be the story of creation as indicated by science, 
in contrast with the Mosaic account. The two have no points of 
contact. If one be accepted the other must be rejected. The 
outline of development prior to the beginning of stratification 
may be called a mere speculation. Granting this, it is a specula- 
tion based on definite, well established grounds, and it has been 
elaborated by the best minds that have been active in the domain 
of chemistry and geology, such as Hunt, Forbes, Wurtz, Winchell, 
and Hitchcock. These authors differ among themselves in mat- 
ters of detail, but any one of them alone would be a better 
authority than all the writers of antiquity put together. Possi- 
bly, however, no intelligent reader to-day needs to be reminded 
that God' s revelation to man may be as well through evolution as 
through any book for which inspiration is claimed. To discredit 
the Mosaic account may be like demolishing a man of straw. 
"Whichever of the two we accept, we are still face to face with 
problems beyond human ken, and are forced to bow in humility 
before the Infinite. 



EVOLUTION OF VEGETAL LIFE 



BY 
WILLIAM POTTS 



COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED 
IX CONNECTION WITH ESSAY V. 

Darwin's Origin of Species; Variations of Plants and Animals 
under Domestication; Climbing arid Insectivorous Plants; Hoiv Or- 
chids are Fertilized; Cross and Self- Fertilization; Earth Worms 
and Vegetable Mould; Gray's Darwiniana, and How Plants Grow; 
Mcholson's Palaeontology; LeConte's Geology; Grant Allen's Evo- 
lutionist at Large, and Colors of Flowers; Haeckel's Creation; Hux- 
ley's Physical Basis of Life, Lay Sermons, and Lectures on Evolu- 
tion; Spencer's Spontaneous Generation; Wallace's Island Life, and 
Tropical Nature; Clarke's Mind in Nature; Bastian and Tyndall 
on Spontaneous Generation; Powell's Our Heredity from God; Daw- 
son's Geological History of Plants. 



EVOLUTION OF VEGETAL LIFE. 



In touching the question of development, even as it af- 
fects the most insignificant plant, we are feeling the pulse 
of the deepest mysteries : 

" To me the meanest flower that Mows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." 

On the 26th of last July I was wandering around among 
the rocks where Cape Ann thrusts her granite arm out into 
the turbulent Atlantic, and bears from hour to hour through 
the ages the buffeting thunder-strokes of its mighty surf. 
The breeze was fresh ; bright sunlight was reflected from 
the orange-gray rocks ; and the air was full of the perfume of 
the bay -berry. But perhaps most lovely of all, where all was 
charming, was the myriad of wild roses which covered the 
bushes springing from the stony soil. We all know and 
love these delicate blossoms, which everywhere make our 
roadsides so attractive at midsummer. Professor Gray 
enumerates six species as growing in the Northern United 
States, and some varieties of these are to be found in al- 
most every locality where there is a trace of wildness left. 
I have here roses from a bush of a different character, but 
we shall hardly say that they are less lovely. I want to 
ask you to follow me in an inquiry into the stages of the 
development of the bush from which they were taken ; the 
different steps of growth which occurred before I could 
place before you these royal blossoms. 

In what shape did it first appear as a growing plant ? Prob- 
ably as a short cutting from a branch, bearing a few buds, 
and inserted for a part of its length in sandy loam : that is, 
it was simply a part of another bush. The bush from 
which it was taken doubtless originated in the same way, 
and so back for many generations, or quasi-generations, — 
for, as a matter of fact, we have here no change by gen- 
eration, but simply the prolongation of the life of a single 

* Copyright, 1889, by The New Ideal Publishing Co. 



112 Evolution of Vegetal Life. 

plant, by cutting off the root, and bringing the branch into 
immediate contact with the soil and its contained fluids. 
By this means its life may be prolonged far beyond what is 
ordinarily its duration if left to grow from the original root,, 
but not always, perhaps, beyond what is possible in such 
case : of a rose-bush still living at Heldersheim, in Ger- 
many, it is said that, 800 years ago, Bishop Hepilo caused 
a trellis to be erected to support it. 

For the purpose of my illustration, I can most safely go 
far back of the plant which produced the roses before us r 
and perhaps may as well take one of those in the thorns of 
which I became entangled by the margin of the sea. Those 
of you who are familiar with botany will pardon the intro- 
duction of some rudimentary facts, which are essential to 
the systematic development of the idea which I am to pre- 
sent to you. 

We find, then, upon the summit of the flower stem, a lit- 
tle green urn or cup, dividing into five leafy points, and 
supporting upon its inner edge the five pink petals and a 
numerous colony of stamens crowned with yellow anthers ; 
while within the cup are many tiny sacks, to each of which 
is attached a pistil having its summit slightly changed into 
what is called the stigma. When the flower is completely 
developed, we find that the anthers open and drop golden 
pollen-grains upon the stigmas below; and sufficient subse- 
quent examination under a microscope shows us that from 
each live pollen-grain there grows a slender thread, which 
gradually penetrates to the little sack or ovule beneath. 
We next find formed, within the ovule, a minute cell : a 
membrane called cellulose, consisting chemically of carbon, 
oxygen and hydrogen, containing a semi-fluid drop of a sub- 
stance called protoplasm, and consisting of the same ele- 
ments, with the addition of nitrogen. I cannot tell you 
just how large this cell may be, but the ordinary diameter 
of cells in vegetable tissue varies between l-240th and 
l-1200th of an inch. If we take the largest of these, a cu- 
bic inch would contain about 14,000,000 of them. But 
whatever its size, this cell carries the promise and the po- 
tency of the plant which is to be. It is not the primary 
form of vitalized matter, for this matter exists as mere 
protoplasm alone, without a membrane. In its earliest con- 
dition we should be unable to tell whether this protoplasm 
is the initial step in the formation of a microscopic being 



Evolution of Vegetal Life. 113 

not distinguishable either as plant or animal, — or whether 
it is to be a rose, a violet, a palm or an oak, — a worm, a fish, 
a lion or a man. Its future is absolutely unpredictable, and 
yet upon it have been impressed or within it are contained 
the influences which determine which of these forms it shall 
take, in what way it shall resemble other beings, and in 
what way be distinguished from them : whether it shall live 
a stationary life, rooted to a rock or to the soil, — accepting 
the fate which the winds and the waters bring it, — or 
whether it shall have the power of flying to "fresh woods 
and pastures new " ; whether it shall be a characterless 
automaton, or whether it shall speculate upon the origin of 
things, and upon life and death, the infinite and the abso- 
lute. 

If we follow the changes in this cell, we find it gradually 
becoming larger, and dividing by a partition into two, into 
four, and so on, until a tissue is formed ; into a substance 
having perceptible length, breadth and thickness. At last 
we recognize it as a seed : two minute leaflets attached to 
the rudiment of a stem, all enclosed within a surface mem- 
brane. This is now distinctly the beginning of a plant, 
and with numerous others it is contained within the orange- 
colored "hip." In this state it is quiescent, but if after a 
time we place it in the earth, we shortly find it burst its 
sheath : the stem lengthens and pushes downward ; the leaf- 
lets, reaching toward the surface, separate, and from be- 
tween them there rises a sprout. How is this done ? Sim- 
ply by the increase in size, and the multiplication of the 
cells already formed, by absorption of the necessary chem- 
ical constituents found in the soil. But these cells now 
have a more definite arrangement. Some form a white root, 
and some a stem also white, until it thrusts into the air and 
light the point of a leaf, which immediately takes a tint of 
green. 

From this time on subsistence is not drawn from the soil 
alone, but from the air also. The leaf is not simply the 
right bower of the plant ; it is its essential, I might say its 
only essential organ. There are, it is true, some plants 
which get along without leaves ; such, for example, as the 
bright orange-colored dodder, common in our meadows and 
by the brooksides, trailing its long thread-like stems over 
shrubs and herbs, a golden network, with never a leaf, but 
with clusters of white blossoms. But these are lazy rogues, 



114 Evolution of Vegetal Life. 

mere parasites, which do not even remain rooted in the 
ground, although they start there, but which attach them- 
selves to other plants, and, too indolent to manufacture their 
own sap, plunder the vegetables, to which they have affixed 
themselves, of the material which they had provided for 
their own growth. There are numerous other plants not 
growing from the soil, such as the air-plants, with their gor- 
geous, or their fantastic insect or birdlike flowers ; but these, 
to do them justice, are not so wholly idle and degraded: 
they are provided with leaves with which they earn their 
own living ; they do not draw nourishment from the trees 
upon which they are found, but merely use them for sup- 
port. 

As the cells become more numerous, they also become 
more and more diversified in structure. In different parts 
they are different in form, in size and in their nature ; some 
are very beautiful ; most are small, but others take the form 
of tubes, and are enormous, having a length in some in- 
stances as great as one-sixth of an inch ! But this is an ex- 
treme case. The crude ingredients for the sustenance of 
the plant are absorbed by the root, and transferred from one 
closed cell to another, through many millions it may be, un- 
til they reach the leaves, where they are mixed with the 
constituents of the atmosphere, and elaborated into the pro- 
toplasm from which the plant is built up. The rapidity 
with which this transference may take place you have your- 
selves noticed, when you have taken a drooping flower and 
placed it in a vessel of water. How soon the stem, leaves 
and blossom regained their firmness, their rigidity, their 
elasticity, their "life" ! 

The plant now sends up a stem upon which appear buds ; 
these unfold into leaves ; branches grow from the axils of 
the leaves, and leaves appear upon these in turn, and 
thorns form, by which the plant is defended. A flower is 
no necessary part of a plant ; it is but one means of pro- 
viding for a continuance of the series. The flower itself is 
but a series of modifications of a cluster of leaves, some 
of which have become sepals, some petals, some stamens, 
and some pistils. At a recent meeting of the Royal Hor- 
ticultural Society in London, an Alpine strawberry was 
shoAvn in which all parts of the flower were more or less 
represented by leaves. The strawberry is a near relative, 
a sort of cousin-german as it were, of the rose. 



Evolution of Vegetal Life. 115 

We have now completed the cycle. Starting from the 
flower, we have followed the life-steps until we have reached 
it again. Another course which we might have adopted, 
the one ordinarily chosen by fruit-growers, is that of bud- 
ding or grafting. We should then have simply taken a sin- 
gle bud in the one case, a small twig in the other, from the 
variety which we desired to propagate, and inserted it into 
a sturdy stock of a nearly related kind, in which we had 
made an incision, bringing the inner bark into close contact, 
and excluding the air from the joint. What is the result 
of this process ? Excepting in a few special cases, which 
I cannot stop to describe, the line of union between the two 
growths becomes indeed a line of union, but remains a line 
of separation. It is like the door of the underworld of 
which Dante speaks, though perhaps the prospect is not so 
hopeless. Your quince or crab stock is firmly rooted in the 
ground ; it draws thence its juices and transfers them from 
cell to cell, to those of the new bud; but here they "suffer 
a sea change into something rich and strange." Your bud 
multiplies its cells, — becomes a twig,- — a branch; it buds, 
it blossoms, and instead of the woody but fragrant quince, 
the rosy but diminutive crab-apple, you gather the pear- 
main, the wine-sap, or the seek-no-further, as you may have 
elected. 

But stop. Do you always gather a fruit exactly like 
that with which you were familiar ? Do you invariably 
obtain from the seed or cutting of your rose a flower of the 
same identical tint — of the same form, of the same fra- 
grance ? Not so : you find slight differences, for the better 
or for the worse ; scarcely any two are precisely alike ; you 
choose those that you prefer and propagate them; you neg- 
lect the others. 

We have seen that Gray enumerates six species of wild 
roses in the Northern United States. There are also a num- 
ber of wild species in the Eastern Hemisphere — how many 
I cannot tell you. But their cultivation began at an early 
date, and they have been developed and crossed inextri- 
cably. In 1793 some wild Scotch roses were transplanted 
into a garden. One bore flowers slightly tinged with red;, 
from this, double roses were developed, blush, crimson, pur- 
ple, red, marbled, two colored, white and yellow, and differ- 
ing as much in size and shape. In 1841 the number of 
varieties in the nursery-gardens near Glasgow was estimated 



116 Evolution of Vegetal Life. 

at 300. In 1829, 2562 kinds of roses were enumerated as 
cultivated in France alone. Most cultivated roses have be- 
come double, and gradually less fertile, and less sure of re- 
production in kind by seed, so that propagation by cuttings 
and by budding and grafting is resorted to, when the same 
characteristics are desired. Our apples belong to the rose- 
family. You know how much they vary. If they do not 
all come from the common crab, there are no wild species 
living, or of which there is any trace, resembling the pres- 
ent forms, and these are continually being increased in num- 
ber. 

This may be as good a time as any, to speak of another 
variation, — a variation which sometimes occurs immediate- 
ly in the fruit produced from the pollen of one plant when 
placed upon the flower of another, and not simply as seen 
in the fruit of a plant resulting from seed so produced. 
As an illustration of this, I will give a single instance. 

At St. Valery in France there is an apple-tree which has 
blossoms with a double calyx having ten divisions, and with 
fourteen styles, but without corolla or stamens. The 
flowers therefore require artificial fertilization with pollen 
from another tree. The girls of the village go annually to 
"faire ses pommes," — to make their apples, each marking 
her own fruit with a ribbon, and as different pollen is used, 
the fruit differs on the tree. This is an exceptional case, 
but the same thing has occurred where the conditions were 
not so unusual. 

Almonds, pears, peaches, plums, cherries, nectarines, etc., 
belong to the rose-family. The peach is believed to have 
been derived from the almond, and the nectarine is sup- 
posed to have grown from a peach-stone, in Boston, Eng- 
land. It is certain that peach-trees frequently produce 
nectarines, while nectarines at times produce peaches, 
sometimes both kinds of fruit appearing together on the 
tree. Occasionally a part of a single fruit is peach, and a 
part nectarine. You know what a vast difference there is 
in the varieties of grapes. Most of these are supposed to 
have risen from a single Asiatic species. Of gooseberries 
there were eight varieties known in 1629 ; now there are 
over 300. 

Pansies are believed to have been derived from five wild 
stocks, variously crossed. You are all familiar with their 
varieties and differences. Dahlias are believed to have all 



Evolution of Vegetal Life. 117 

•come from one species since 1802 in France and 1804 in Eng- 
land. With the varieties of these yon are likewise familiar. 
So also with the hyacinths. The original flower, which was 
brought from the East, had the petals narrow, wrinkled, 
pointed, and of a flimsy texture. In 1597 there were four 
varieties ; in 1629 there were eight ; in 1768 there were 
said to be nearly 2000. The number has since, it is be- 
lieved, very much decreased. Of chrysanthemums, "it is 
said that at least 10,000 seedlings have been exhibited for 
the first time this year. The diversity of form and color 
displayed is almost infinite, and the various strains have 
been so intercrossed that the seeds from a single flower- 
head will often produce examples of the types most widely 
separated in structure and size, together with intermediate 
and kindred forms." 

These numerous varieties have been produced first by un- 
conscious, then by conscious as well as by unconscious se- 
lection. The least of a botanist among us knows enough 
to gather the finest cluster of mayflowers which she may 
find by brushing away the dry leaves with which they are 
covered in the early spring ; the best huckleberries or blue- 
berries that grow upon the mountain top. We all know 
that there is a difference. So in the orchard or in the gar- 
den. If there are too many apple-trees, it is not those which 
bear the finest apples which will be sacrificed ; if the rose- 
bushes need protection from the frost, it is not those which 
produce the smallest and the most scentless blossoms that 
will be most tenderly cared for. We know, too, that as we 
give a more steady supply of moisture and nourishment to 
the plants which we protect, they improve in quality and 
increase in variety. How they will vary, at the outset we 
do not know, nor do we know vjhen they will vary. But 
experience has shown us that they will vary, and that by 
protecting such varieties as please us most, and propagating 
them, and conversely, by neglecting or destroying those 
which are less satisfactory, the variations once begun can 
be increased and made definite upon the lines chosen. 

Erom this elementary condition, cultivation has gone for- 
ward until it has become the artistic representative of a 
science, and until it almost seems that due diligence only is 
required to enable the floriculturist to turn out a flower of 
any pattern which may be suggested to him. 

It must be borne in mind however, that these results are 



118 Evolution of Vegetal Life. 

frequently attained under conditions which are artificial, 
and which are dependent upon the continued care and at- 
tention of the operator. From this it would naturally be 
inferred that the elaborate productions of the culturist's art, 
if left to themselves, would either perish from the too cold 
charities of the common world, or would rapidly change 
their character, and if they did not return toward the form 
from which they were derived, would at least become some- 
thing quite different from that to which they had been 
trained, — and this is frequently, if not always, found to be 
the case. I have been particularly interested in noticing 
the apple-trees growing among the trees of the forest, by 
the side of country roads : not merely the fruit is different 
from what it should have been, but the whole character of 
the tree is changed. The branches, instead of being few 
and wide-reaching, have become numerous, ascending, fre- 
quently divided, angular, and with twigs short and thorny. 

Strictly speaking, an organism is that which has organs. 
Colloquially, however, when we speak of organic life, we 
use the term in contradistinction from mineral, which we 
call inorganic. As we have seen, the lowest form of mat- 
ter of which we speak as living, is composed of carbon, 
oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen, which are also found in 
compounds not termed organic. What, then, is the distinc- 
tion between the organic and the inorganic, and how and 
when did this distinction arise ? 

Huxley gives three points, in which he claims that that 
which has life differs from that which has not life. First : 
In its chemical composition; the chemical elements are 
united in a combination called proteine, which, together 
with a large proportion of water, forms protoplasm. Pro- 
teine, it is said, has never yet been found except as a prod- 
uct of living bodies. Second : Its universal disintegration 
and waste by oxidation, and its reintegration by the recep- 
tion of new matter. Third : Its tendency to undergo cyc- 
lical changes — that is, to pass through a course of devel- 
opment and decay in a succession of forms, like and unlike. 

Probably at the outset many persons would say that mo- 
tion and growth are the most characteristic attributes of life. 
But the mineral compounds show both motion and growth. 
Certainly few things are more definite or beautiful than the 
growth, of course accompanied by motion, which occurs in 



Evolution of Vegetal Life. 119 

the formation of crystals, and which is shown us in tran- 
scendently lovely forms in the frost-work upon our win- 
dows upon a winter morning. 

It is a most interesting question whether the forces which 
produce organic life differ from those so-called physical 
forces with which we are familiar in other phenomena. It 
is clear that all the complicated processes which we call 
" vital " in ourselves and other higher organisms, are invari- 
ably found in the closest and most intimate relations, ap- 
parently of effect and cause, with light, heat, electricity, 
etc. Modern science has shown these forces to be equiva- 
lent, correlative and interconvertible, and it would seem an 
excess of stupidity did we not mentally connect the elab- 
orate operations which we know with the simpler ones 
which preceded them, as alike in nature and origin. How- 
ever we may define it, we are certainly, at present, forced 
to recognize a distinction between that which we say has 
life, and that which we say is without life. But this dis- 
tinction, this parting of the ways, finds us upon a narrow 
edge. On the side of life, we have an unorganized albu- 
minous substance without definite size, or form, or bounda- 
ries, — simply homogeneous matter of intimately united car- 
bon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. I should note here 
that Huxley remarks : " It may be safely said of all those 
living things which are large enough to enable us to trust 
the evidence of , microscopes, that they are heterogeneous 
optically, and that their different parts, and especially the 
surface-layer, as contrasted with the interior, differ phys- 
ically and chemically." He does not, however, mean by 
this that the difference extends so far as to constitute or- 
gans. 

How the differentiation between the living and the not- 
living took place, who shall say ? All that we know at 
present is, that it did take place, or that at some time it 
was, and that among the qualities of which so-called organ- 
ic matter was then possessed, or which at least it has al- 
ways exhibited since it has been observed by men, were the 
capacity for change, and the power of transforming inor- 
ganic into organic matter. 

Protoplasm in masses, as discovered at the bottom of the 
sea by the Challenger expedition, was described by Huxley 
under the name of Bathybius. Of the same composition 
we find perhaps the lowest forms of individual life, in what 



120 Evolution of Vegetal Life. 

are called monera; — simple tiny lumps of protoplasm, 
which, have no containing membrane. Their motion con- 
sists in a changing of shape by the protrusion and retrac- 
tion of certain parts, not differing in structure from other 
parts, and they multiply in a most unmathematical way, by 
dividing. Are they animal ? Are they vegetable ? Are 
they not rather a division antecedent to these, and one which 
cannot be classed with either of the great kingdoms, which 
probably diverged from it ? Haeckel, with a considerable 
show of reason, takes the latter position, at least tenta- 
tively. 

These, and the nearest allied forms, are generally micro- 
scopic ; some may be said to have organization — there is a 
certain differentiation of parts ; they have motion ; some of 
them, such as the diatomaceae, have silicious shells or skel- 
etons, with wonderfully beautiful markings. That you 
might have some perception of the subtility of nature's 
handiwork, I should like to show you through my micro- 
scope a specimen of one of the species of these. You 
would see a tiny vessel, for all the world like a canoe 
turned bottom upward (as I have a chilly remembrance of 
mine having been once, with myself atop, under the gentle 
ministrations of a September gale in New York harbor), 
only with stem and stern gracefully curved sidewise in op- 
posite directions, and regularly marked diagonally from 
point to point with almost innumerable parallel lines in two 
series, nearly at right angles. It is magnified 500 diam- 
eters, — that is, within the space apparently occupied, could 
be placed 250,000 of the actual diatoms. Mr. McAllister 
tells me that he has seen the same object under a magnify- 
ing power of 100,000 diameters, or covering seemingly a 
surface which would enclose ten billions (or, what is the 
same thing, 10,000 millions) of the vegetable, if vegetable 
we are to call it. Of course but an extremely small frac- 
tion of the object can thus be examined at one time. Un- 
der this power, the simple parallel lines become the inter- 
secting paths between continuous rows of hemispherical 
projections. 

Notwithstanding their shells, and notwithstanding their 
motion, these are usually accounted vegetable. Indeed, it 
is difficult to find any test by which that which is animal 
may be separated absolutely from that which is vegetable. 
Is it incongruous for a vegetable to have a solid mineral 



Evolution of Vegetal Life. 121 

frame-work like that of the diatoms ? The Rev. J. G-. 
Wood says of flint in grasses and in the horse-tails or 
equisetae, "so plentiful is this substance, and so equally is 
it distributed, that it can be separated by heat or acids from 
the vegetable parts of the plant, and will still preserve the 
form of the original cuticle with its cell-walls, stomata and 
hairs perfectly well defined." Is it strange that a plant 
should have motion ? Darwin has shown, by multitudinous 
experiments, that many climbing-plants regularly revolve 
at their growing ends, from right to left, or from left to 
right ; that these revolutions are made in specific times ; 
that their tendrils, when they have them, likewise revolve, 
and move forward to avoid clasping the stems upon which 
they grow ; that sometimes, even if touched on one side by 
a weight no greater than 1-50 th of a grain, they will curve 
toward that side, and subsequently become relaxed ; that 
when they find a suitable object, they will twine around it, 
and having fastened themselves securely, draw up into a 
spiral spring, thus holding the plant more safely to its sup- 
port, and at the same time providing a method by which it 
can yield to the pressure of the wind without disaster. 

Is it in the character of their food ? It used to be said 
that animals could only subsist upon organic matter pro- 
vided by vegetables, either immediately, or indirectly 
through the substance of other animals, while vegetables 
drew their nourishment only from air, earth and water, elab- 
orating organic from inorganic matter. But here again we 
were at fault. I am the happy possessor of a few rocky 
acres in the north-eastern corner of Connecticut. At the 
foot of my slope is a pond, with a meadow and a stretch of 
marshy ground rich in flowers of many sorts. Among 
these is the beautiful sundew, with its little round or oval 
leaves, covered with slender hairs, each holding upon its 
summit a pure and brilliant ruby drop. There it lies in 
wait to catch incautious insects, ants or flies, and when once 
they have ventured upon its shining trap, gently folds them 
in and holds them in a close embrace, until all their avail- 
able substance has been absorbed. There, also, in hun- 
dreds, — yes, in thousands, — is the curious pitcher-plant, al- 
ways holding out its cups to catch unwary stragglers, and 
then using the same cups in which to prepare them for its 
daily meal. In the South there are other species of these, 
which have a sugary trail leading over the edge of the cups 



122 Evolution of Vegetal Life. 

and so down to the ground, — a long and narrow road to per- 
dition for uneducated or too dissipated insects. There, also, 
are the Venus' fly-traps, — more ambitious relatives of the 
sundew, — greedy plants, which are not always cautious 
enough about what they attempt to devour. It is said that 
one of them, being fed by a waggish investigator with a 
piece of cheese, had a most disagreeable dyspepsia there- 
from. 

Mr. W. T. Thistleton Dyer, in the " Encyclopaedia Brit- 
annica," draws this distinction between animals and plants : 
" If we compare a plant and animal reduced to their sim- 
plest terms, and consisting therefore in each case of a sin- 
gle cell, i. e. of a minute mass of protoplasm invested with a 
cell-wall, while the unicellular plant draws its nutriment by 
simple imbibition through the cell-wall from the surround- 
ing medium, — a process which implies that all its nutri- 
ment passes into it in a liquid form, — the unicellular animal 
is able to take in solid nutriment by means of interruptions 
in the continuity of the cell-wall, and is also able after- 
wards to reduce this solid food, if of a suitable composi- 
tion, to the liquid state." 

We do not have to go very far above the monera to find what 
we may safely call vegetable forms. And first we discover, 
for example, the protococcus, "which forms dull crimson 
patches resembling blood-stains on the northern side of 
damp rocks or old walls," — plants of a single cell, of which 
Haeckel says, "several hundred thousand occupy a space 
no larger than a pin's head." They belong to the algae or 
tangles ; and, while these are perhaps the smallest, within 
the same division at the other end of the scale we find the 
largest plants, the macrocysts, 300 or 400 feet in length. 
With the algae of the sea, in some form, we are most of us 
familiar, and many of the species which we find upon the 
shore, where they have been left stranded by the tide, are 
exceedingly beautiful. It is noteworthy, that some algae 
have been found living in hot-springs at a temperature as 
high as 208 degrees Fahr., — a quite exceptional condition 
of life. 

Nearly related to the algae, are the fungi and lichens, 
the algae being distinguished from the others by contain- 
ing chlorophyll, that is, thf substance which gives the green 
color which we see in most plants, and which is supposed 
to be the principal instrument in the elaboration of the mi- 



Evolution of Vegetal Life. 123 

trinient upon which the plant subsists. Among the fungi 
are the bacteria, the yeast-plants, the bread-moulds, the 
cheese-moulds, mushrooms, toadstools, rust, smut, and a 
vast number of others of a related character. These, as is 
the case with most of the lower forms of life, multiply with 
enormous rapidity. Together, the algae, fungi and li- 
chens form the sub-kingdom called Thallophyta, the charac- 
teristic of which is that the plants are without distinct dif- 
ferentiation of root, stem and lateral appendages. 

Another sub-kingdom, — Cormophyta, — embraces the re- 
maining vegetable population, which may be arranged ap- 
proximately in the order of development or of elaboration, 
thus : mosses and liverworts ; ferns ; the equisetae or 
horsetails ; the lycopodiums or club-mosses and their near 
relations : then the flowering plants, beginning with the 
coniferae, — the pines, firs, cypresses, yews, and the cycas, 
which have naked seeds, usually in cones,- — and ending with 
the multitude of trees, shrubs and herbs having their seeds 
enclosed in seed-vessels, and divided into those the stems of 
which increase in size by additions throughout their thick- 
ness, like the palms among trees, and the lilies among 
herbs, and those which increase in size by growth on the ex- 
terior of the wood immediately under the bark — thus 
showing year-marks if they be perennials ; this division in- 
cluding such trees as the oak, and such herbs as the violet. 

While differing enormously among themselves in every 
Tespect except one, the leading difference which runs 
through this classification is in the method of reproduction, 
and the structure of the reproductive organs. In the very 
lowest plant-forms, multiplication seems to depend simply 
upon the strength of the cell membrane. The single cell 
increases in size, and a partition is formed across it. If the 
membrane be weak, the two cells part company, and the 
number of that species has been doubled. If the mem- 
brane be strong, the two cells remain attached, and the pro- 
cess of increase in size and division may continue. The pro- 
toplasm of the unicellular plant is frequently broken into 
fragments, each provided with cilia or filamentous prolon- 
gations of the protoplasm, by the aid of which they move 
rapidly through the water in which they are formed. Grad- 
ually each becomes covered with a coating of cellulose, and 
begins life as a complete plant. Much higher in the scale 
of vegetation, the power of increase by simple sub-division 



124 Evolution of Vegetal Life. 

is retained, as we have seen in the propagation by cuttings. 
A more marked instance is to be found in the case of the 
begonia, which the florists propagate from fragments of 
the leaves. In some of the garden lilies, perfect bulbs are 
formed in the axils of the leaves ; in other plants, bulbs 
are formed under ground; in the potato, large stems or 
tubers are formed upon the roots, and from these new plants 
are grown. 

In the simplest plants formed of aggregations of cells, 
the independence of the cells seems to be simply limited by 
their physical attachment to each other ; subsequently the 
functions of the parts become diversified, and a division of 
labor begins. 

The next form of the reproductive process is found in the 
desmids and diatoms, which, beside multiplying by division, 
also multiply by conjugation ; that is, two cells or plants 
unite to form a compound plant, the contents of which, tak- 
ing upon itself a coat of cellulose, begins a new series of 
individuals. The next is a differentiation in the structure 
of the plant by means of which certain cells called anther- 
idia, produce antherozoids, which correspond with the grains 
of pollen in the higher plants, and other cells produce 
oospheres which correspond with the protoplasmic contents 
of the ovules. Then we come to the mosses, which have pro- 
cesses resembling pistils and antheridia, either on the same, 
or on separate plants. Then ferns, in which the spores, 
found upon the underside of the fronds or leaves, drop off 
when ripe, and produce minute plantlets, which contain sep- 
arate elements which must unite before fertilization is ef- 
fected. Above this grade are the flowering plants, in which 
is more or less developed the complete system which I have 
described in the case of the rose. 

In much the greater number of the plants with which we 
are familiar, the stamens and pistils are found in the same 
flower ; sometimes they are found in different flowers upon 
the same plant ; sometimes some of the flowers upon a plant 
are perfect, and some are staminate or pistillate only ; and 
sometimes the staminate or pistillate flowers are found upon 
separate plants. The last form is esteemed the most high- 
ly developed. I should note in passing that while in all 
the higher orders of plants having flowers with stamens and 
pistils, fertilization seems to be necessary for the main- 
tenance of the race, nevertheless instances have been occa- 



Evolution of Vegetal Life. 125 

sionally observed, in which perfect seeds appear to have 
been formed without fertilization. 

I have said that the leaf is the essential organ of a per- 
fect plant. Many jjlants consist only of the leaf. Rising 
above this stage, and reaching that of a stem, with root and 
lateral appendages, we still find the leaf the most important 
feature, and upon it is dependent the character of the plant. 
The leaves appear upon the stem in certain specific relations. 
They are opposite, or in a whorl around the stem, or with 
the stem passing through them, or placed like a shield upon 
its summit, or arranged alternately upon its sides. If alter- 
nate, they are arranged in certain spirals, as, in one turn 
with two leaves, or one turn with three leaves, or two turns 
with five leaves, or three turns with eight leaves, or five 
turns with thirteen leaves, etc., before a point is reached ex- 
actly above that of starting. Sometimes, instead of their 
ordinary form, leaves assume those of bracts, of scales, as 
in buds, of tendrils, of spines, etc., and, as we have already 
seen, of the various parts of flowers. In flowers they exhib- 
it almost every conceivable variety of form and color : some- 
times there is one, sometimes there are two floral envelopes, 
their leaflets united or separate, few or many ; sometimes 
there are stamens and pistils ; sometimes either ; sometimes 
none ; sometimes the flower is regular in shape ; sometimes 
irregular, in one or other direction, — any one of the parts 
occasionally reverting to its normal form as a simple leaf. 
As the branches usually appear at the axils of the leaves, 
the arrangement of the branches is governed by that of the 
leaves. 

I have said that plants differ in structure in every respect 
except one. That one is the cell. As the individual plant 
starts with a single cell, and, simply by aggregation of cells 
growing from this one, obtains at last all its varied parts as 
a perfect whole, so the vegetable kingdom throughout, from 
the simplest form to the most complex, is but a series of 
similar aggregations. Under the development hypothesis it 
is claimed that these forms are of a common stock ; are re- 
lated to each other by lines of descent, all having probably 
originated in the unicellular aggregation of protoplasm 
which I have described. As we cannot say how this became 
differentiated from inorganic matter, so we cannot positive- 
ly say whether such differentiation can now take place. 
The problem of spontaneous generation is one to which 



126 Evolution of Vegetal Life. 

much, time and thought and careful experiment have been 
given. 

Not many years ago it was supposed that the develop- 
ment of infusoria in water, in which organic matter had 
been steeped ; the swarming of animal and vegetable life in 
decaying organic matter of all kinds, and where no organic 
matter was known to exist, and great caution had been used 
in experimentation, — and other similar facts, — were proof 
positive that such life may even now be generated sponta- 
neously. But then followed an enormous increase in the 
precision and care with which experiments could be con- 
ducted, and it was believed by most that when all access of 
the germ-laden air had been made impossible, and other es- 
sential conditions had been fulfilled, no such generation oc- 
curred. Subsequent investigation made this again uncertain. 
I have an impression that some one has said, — if not, some 
one will say, — that the struggle here is like that between 
the manufacturers of big guns, and the builders of mail-clad 
vessels. As to spontaneous generation at the present time, 
we can hardly do more than .render the Scotch verdict, — 
"not proven." But if it does not now occur, it does not 
therefore follow that in the long-buried past the conditions 
may not have been such as to have permitted this. 

In this connection, the theory that the parts of an individ- 
ual, such as a tree or the individual cells of even complex 
organisms, may have some sort of independent existence, is 
most interesting. 

Supposing the development theory to be correct, it is to 
be assumed that the earliest forms of vegetable and animal 
life must have been the simplest — mere albuminous mat- 
ter. ~No such forms are found in the geological record : it 
is impossible that they should be, — their substance and or- 
ganization (if we may use such a term) were such that they 
must inevitably be annihilated by time and mechanical ac- 
tion. Moreover, all the earlier rocks appear to have been 
exposed to such heat and pressure as must unquestionably 
have destroyed much more elaborated tissues than those first 
formed. Even should we ever obtain access to that portion 
of the record now concealed in the bowels of the earth, or 
under the waters of the sea, there is scarcely a possibility 
that we should find evidence of the earliest forms of life. 
Moreover, we could not expect to find a regular series of 
forms. Between those deposits in which vegetable remains 



Evolution of Vegetal Life. 127 

arc preserved there are the widest gaps. They were usually 
laid down upon sea-bottoms, or in shallow lakes, or at the 
mouths of rivers, and vast intervals of upheaval occurred 
between them. There were also great changes in temper- 
ature, and by climatic influences, and the varying connec- 
tions of islands and continents, alternately elevated and de- 
pressed, tribes have been pent within narrow limits, or 
spread to the four quarters of the globe. Nevertheless, in 
general, the story that geology tells is the story that we 
should expect to hear. In the several great geologic pe- 
riods, evidences of the vegetable life of which have been 
preserved, certain plant-forms have dominated in turn, and 
in the order of their complexity as I have already defined 
them. 

First appeared the algae, in the Primordial Epoch, and 
with them, apparently, no other. In the Primary Epoch, 
in which were made the great coal deposits of the Carbonif- 
erous Period, there was an enormous development of mosses, 
of lycopodiums, of equisetae ^r horsetails, and of giant 
ferns in great variety and of great beauty. So far as many 
of these exist to-day, they are characteristic growths of 
warm countries. It is noteworthy that plant-life was the 
dominant life of the Carboniferous Period ; that plants grow 
most luxuriantly in an atmosphere containing an excess of 
carbonic-acid gas ; that the effect of such an atmosphere 
would be to greatly raise the temperature of the surface of 
the globe ; and that during the Carboniferous Period, this 
tropical vegetation seems to have been spread throughout 
the circum-polar regions. If, then, at this period, there was 
an excess of carbonic-acid gas in the earth's atmosphere, 
all the facts which we note are harmoniously accounted for. 

The latter part of the Primary Epoch and the beginning 
of the Secondary, saw the development and reign of the 
palm-ferns and the pines ; and then the palms and similar 
interior growing plants ; and finally, in the Tertiary and 
Modern Epochs, became dominant the hard wood trees and 
varied flora that now in great part form the royal fittings of 
the temple of nature in which we dwell. Of old herbaceous 
forms the remains are, naturally, relatively few, because of 
the softness of their substance ; but so far as they appear, 
their character corresponds with that of the general record. 

I do not mean that all of our present forms are very re- 
cent. On the contrary, though not among the earliest, some 



128 Evolution of Vegetal Life. 

of them were developed long ago, and when vegetation gen- 
erally was of a simpler character. Take for instance the 
sequoias, once numerous, of which there are now but two 
living species, both on the Pacific slope, and of which giant 
trees it used to be said that it required two men and a boy 
to see to the top of one of them. Nor do I mean that 
none of our present forms are simple and primary. I have 
already shown you that the case is quite different. But, as 
we shall see, there is not only no incongruity in this ; on 
the contrary, it is in strict accordance with the theory which 
I am attempting to illustrate. 

The theory of Evolution, as portrayed by Spencer, de- 
scribes a progress from the homogeneous to the heteroge- 
neous ; from the all-alike, to the greatly varied. This does 
not necessarily imply advance in one direction. The con- 
tribution of Darwin to this theory was the proposition of a 
condition, of an active agent, and of the method of its ope- 
ration ; the struggle for existence, natural selection, and the 
survival of the fittest : of the fittest, mark you, to comply 
with the conditions existing, — not fittest in the sense of 
best, which is the interpretation usually put upon the term 
by those who have not made the matter a study. We have 
here however a good illustration of the saying that there is. 
always room at the top. The greater the variety, the more 
certain it is that with complexity of form will come advance 
on certain lines, because, upward and outward, the possibil- 
ities are infinite. 

Darwin claimed, modestly but firmly, that the one named 
by him was the principal, though not necessarily the only 
cause of the development of all existing animal and veg- 
etable life from simple primary forms. If you have not 
thought carefully of the matter, perhaps you have not real- 
ized that there is any such thing as a struggle for existence 
in organic life, although those of you who have tackled the 
world single-handed may perhaps be inclined to make an 
exception in your own case. Let us see : a few suggestions, 
only, will suffice. 

Experiment has shown that the air contains germs in 
great variety, in numbers inconceivable. So also the soil. 
Darwin took three table-spoonfuls of mud, from three dif- 
ferent points beneath water on the edge of a little pond, and, 
placing it under cover in his study, kept it there for six 
months, pulling up and counting each plant as it grew. 



Evolution of Vegetal Life. 129 

There were 537 of them ! But one other case will tell the 
whole story. Darwin counted and estimated the seeds of 
one of the English orchids — orchis maculata : there were 
186,000. Taking into account the size of the plant, he found 
by calculation that if these seeds should all grow, 174,000 
of them would be sufficient to cover an acre ; that is, in one 
generation, or one year, the fruit of a single plant would be 
sufficient to cover an acre ; in two, sufficient to cover the 
island of Anglesea ; in three to cover 47-50ths, or nearly 
the whole, of the surface of the earth ! Yet this plant is 
not increasing in number : not more than one, then, out of 
186,000 of its seeds, is able to maintain itself to the point 
of producing other seeds, and carrying on the line. 

Seeing that such is the condition of life, — that all the 
" soft places " must be taken almost at the moment the 
doors are opened, and that standing-room only is to be found 
by the few that are ready to take the places of those that 
from time to time fall out of the ranks, is it not inevitable 
that the slightest advantage in any conceivable direction 
will be favorable, and that the plant having this advantage 
will be the one that will live and perfect its seed ? 

We have seen that slight variations are the rule in nature. 
These variations may take any direction. If there are up- 
on a given space all the tall plants that can there find room, 
smaller ones only can creep in, and vice versa. If all the 
material required by complicated organisms is already spok- 
en for, those only that can live on an inferior quality can 
find a chance to exist. There are all possible gradations of 
these conditions. Experience shows that a spot of ground 
sown with the seeds of several genera of grasses, will pro- 
duce a greater number of plants, and greater weight of herb- 
age, than a similar spot sown with a single species. Dar- 
win found on a piece of turf, three feet by four, which had 
been left for many years under similar conditions, plants of 
twenty species, from eighteen genera and eight orders, show- 
ing a wide difference in character. 

Time will not permit me to even enter upon the details 
which have been gathered illustrating the nature of this 
struggle for position, which is incessantly going on, or the 
evidences of its effect, excepting possibly in a single direc- 
tion. I should like to explain Darwin's hypothesis of Pan- 
genesis. I should like to show you how seeds and plants 
are distributed : borne on the winsrs of the wind : carried in 



130 Evolution of Vegetal Life. 

the crops or between the toes of birds ; floated across waters 
in old tree-trunks and timbers, or shipped unwittingly in 
the meshes of sacks or cracks of packing-boxes. I should 
like to tell how our most troublesome weeds, like the white- 
weed, or so-called daisy, wnich trades upon the reputation 
of the " wee, modest, crimsOn-tippit flower," and a host of 
others, are pauper-immigrants, — some of them anarchists, 
indeed,- — naturalized and voters the first year, every one. 
Against them, high license, local option, and prohibition 
have been alike unavailing : the American System of Pro- 
tection has been an utter failure. I should like also to show 
you the minute degrees by which great changes are usually 
effected, but perhaps this has been sufficiently done in what 
I have said in relation to Artificial Selection. Natural Se- 
lection is simply the happening, under ordinary conditions, 
of that which man effects under extraordinary conditions. 
It is simply that which must result, in the nature of things, 
from the fact that a small fraction only of the whole can 
survive ; and from the two diverse tendencies in the laws 
of descent, for like to produce like, and for the child to dif- 
fer slightly from the parent. Of course the enormous ex- 
tent of the changes presupposes an enormous lapse of time 
in which they were effected. But that lapse of time geol- 
ogy shows to have occurred. 

I will only mention one part of the evidence of adaptation 
which has been recorded. The conviction was forced upon 
Darwin's mind, by the results of an immense amount of re- 
search, that persistent inbreeding is probably detrimental 
to any plant : that strength results from the crossing of in- 
dividuals, if not of varieties or species ; and that, with a 
higher grade in life, comes an increasing tendency to spe- 
cialization in the reproductive organs, and the interposition 
of bars to self-fertilization. His most exhaustive study was 
made among orchids, of which there are some 6000 species. 
Many of these are epiphytes, or air-plants, and are marked 
by the strangeness or magnificence of their blossoms. They 
are also marked by a wonderful tendency to hybridize, which 
enables florists from month to month to exhibit new forms 
and colors, sometimes of wondrous beauty, and therefore, I 
imagine, not closely resembling the dog for which the boy 
wanted an extra price, because he comprised sixteen differ- 
ent kinds. 

Darwin found that in nearly all orchids it is impossible 



Evolution of Vegetal Life. 131 

for the pollen of a plant to reach the stigma of the same, 
but that fertilization is effected by bees, butterflies, and 
other insects, which bring pollen from other plants while 
seeking for nectar, the flowers being usually so constructed 
as to make it impracticable for them to withdraw without 
carrying away the pollen-masses from the anthers, or to en- 
ter the nectaries of other flowers without placing these 
masses upon the stigmas. The book in which he explains 
this process, you will find most fascinating. 

Among the trees upon my rocky hillside, I found last 
summer numerous specimens of a showy, rose-purple or- 
chid, — one of the Cypripediums, — called indifferently, wild 
lady-slipper, Noah's-ark, or moccasin flower. If I were 
to tell the whole truth, I might have to confess that it was 
partly because of its presence that I was induced to buy the 
property. This belongs to a genus which Darwin believes, 
from its structure, to have been one of the earlier forms, 
in which the fertilization of the flower by its own pollen, 
or that of another plant, depends upon whether the insect 
enters it first by one of the side notches or by that in the 
middle. In most orchids, there is no option, — the flower 
must be fertilized from another ; and this is the case with 
one of the most attractive of the smaller species, the lovely 
little white spiranthes, or ladies'-tresses, of our meadows. 

Perhaps I might venture to mention just one other in- 
stance of complicated relations, of especial interest to our 
single sisters. Darwin found that the fertilization of red 
clover depends largely, if not solely, upon the visits of 
humble-bees ; that the number of bees is greatly reduced 
in a district where field-mice are numerous ; and that the 
number of field-mice is dependent upon the number of cats. 
Huxley carries the chain one link further, and throws out 
the suggestion that it is the abundance, or otherwise, of the 
old-maids who cherish the cats, upon which rests the fate 
of the red clover, — and indeed, as Carl Vogt says, the fate 
of the English race, Avhose staple food is the beef grown 
from the red clover. So you see that starting with the 
women, by a devious course we reach the men at last. 

Why do these changes of form occur ? I cannot tell you : 
no man can to-day tell you. We only know that variations 
are constantly taking place ; that one form is developed 
from another ; that these variations result from tendencies 



132 Evolution of Vegetal Life. 

controlling the organic matter, checked and guided by sur- 
rounding conditions. We know that these changes occur, 
as certainly as we can possibly know anything : they are 
taking place at every instant before our eyes. Whether all 
changes have been of the same character ; whether all forms 
of life, above the most simple, have come from pre-existing 
forms, we cannot now prove, — we can probably never prove. 
The most that we can say is, that the preponderance of ev- 
idence in this direction is overwhelming ; that the system 
thus outlined is consistent and reasonable ; and that any 
other system or theory, which has so far been broached, 
seems arbitrary, artificial and improbable. We cannot say 
that we can understand it, excepting as a logical process : 
our minds as developed so far have not capacity for grasp- 
ing certain ideas, which nevertheless we can express. What- 
ever theory of creation we may accept, whichever horn of 
the great dilemma we may adopt, — as, for example, that 
there was a point which had no antecedent, or that there 
was no such point, — we are alike landed in the inconceiv- 
able : and yet, the inconceivable on the one hand or the oth- 
er, must be the true. This is not saying that we must not 
speculate ; it is simply saying that from the constitution of 
the mind speculation has its limits, which we shall reach, 
and which will bring us to a halt willy-nilly : we need not 
fear lest we transcend these limits ; we cannot overstep the 
boundary until our minds take on new powers. We shall 
•adopt, and properly adopt, that theory which is in closest 
accord with what our experience shows us to be the facts ; 
that theory which requires us to make the least draft upon 
the arbitrary and the cataclysmic. 

Some weeks ago there appeared, among the waifs in one 
of our daily papers, the following story : " It is said that 
when Gen. Grant was in Japan, the Japanese Premier, 
Prince Kung, desiring to compliment the General by telling 
him that he was born to command, tried it in English with 
this result : ' Sire, brave General, you vas made to order.' " 
Apparently, iu most quarters to-day, as in the past, the 
great question is, whether things have been made to order. 
The question of design has been the vital question, whether 
Paley has been the spokesman upon the one side or Haeckel 
the spokesman upon the other. During the contest through 
which the development hypothesis passed before its general 
acceptance by the great body of scientific men, this ques- 



Evolution of Vegetal Life. 133 

tion of design was probably the principal stumbling-block, 
and many shades of theory have been advanced, ranging 
from the idea of an absolute pre-existent plan, carried out 
with mechanical exactness by a divine artificer residing afar, 
to that of the occurrence of purely fortuitous and unintend- 
ed combinations. The latter is that of Haeckel, who sup- 
poses all development to result from what he calls natural 
causes and mechanical laws, without any participation of 
divine power. But whence come these " natural causes " 
and "mechanical laws" he fails to explain, and he likewise 
fails ■ to explain how he knows that no divine power is in- 
volved. 

It seems to me that there is a different way of apprehend- 
ing the universe, which accords with the facts more nearly 
than any of these, from the most orthodox to the most ma- 
terialistic ; and it is the natural outcome of the idea of the 
one-ness of things carried to its n th power, — to its ultimate. 

We know nothing of spirit, except as we find it manifest- 
ed through matter : we know nothing of matter except as 
spirit makes it objective. We know nothing of absolute 
life, except as we see it manifested in ourselves, or in that 
which is around us, or in that which what is around us and 
in us records. We know nothing of a primary fiat ; we 
know only development and change. Why should we turn 
our backs upon that which we know, to guess at that which 
we do not know, and cannot possibly prove ? Why choose 
an arbitrary theory while the facts before us all point in 
one direction ? 

We talk of "natural laws" and "divine laws." We 
know nothing of the imposition of such laws, — we can know 
nothing. All that we mean by these expressions is, that 
we are conscious of an invariable sequence. The Universe 
holds together : there is no revolt in that which exists. 

' ' Ever fresh the broad Creation, 
A divine improvisation 
From the heart of God proceeds, 
A single will, a million deeds." 

Our life is a becoming. Life is a becoming. Speaking 
reverentially, as one must, it seems to me that the Universe 
with all that it contains is but the outward semblance of 
one life that is self-developing, and that to speak of design 
in the ordinary sense is a crude and inadequate way of ex- 
pressing the condition upon which that life subsists. Noth- 



134 Evolution of Vegetal Life. 

ing is fortuitous ; nor does it seem to be any more true to 
say that it is created, in the mechanical sense. Life is 
evolving : that is all that we observe, that is all that we 
know. The meanest thing that we see, the highest thing 
that we can conceive, are manifestations of that life, whose 
possibilities are beyond our conception. 

"For I have learned 
To look on nature, not as in the hour 
Of thoughtless youth ; but hearing oftentimes 
The still, sad music of humanity, 
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power 
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt 
A presence that disturbs me with a joy 
Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfused. 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean and the living air, 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man : 
A motion and a spirit, that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
And rolls through all things." 

With the birth of consciousness we feel life ; with the 
development of mind we are able to recognize it ; with the 
growth of mind, to realize that we are of it ; with the refin- 
ing and exaltation of mind, we can deliberately fall into 
line and assume our share of the labor which carries that 
life, of which we are part, ever forward to higher issues. 

Is it possible to contemplate any finer or holier relation, 
any higher destiny than thus exists ? 



Evolution of Vegetal Life. 135 



ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 

I)b. Martin L. Holbrook : — 

In my judgment both animal and vegetable life have evolved 
from forms originally possessing some of the characteristics of 
both kingdoms. Possibly these forms are now represented by 
well known micro-organisms. Though scientists, after many years 
of doubt, now class them as belonging to the lower forms of veg- 
etable life, some of them are as much animal as vegetable. They 
have no chlorophyll, they do not take carbon from the carbonic 
acid of the atmosphere, as plants do, but from other organic com- 
pounds, as ammonia, sugar, etc. They also require oxygen, which, 
like animals, they draw from the air. The cell-structure of the 
albuminous compounds of both plants and animals is almost iden- 
tical. Some of the epithelia of animal and vegetable organisms 
are so much alike that I have known very good microscopists to 
mistake those from leaves found in Croton water for those from 
the human skin and mouth. 

Plants have many qualities in common with animals. The dan- 
delion is as aggressive and capable of self-protection as a human 
being. It seems to have a sort of intelligence. When it sprouts 
in poor soil its leaves form a mat extending some distance from 
the stem, keeping other plants away. In rich soil, among other 
grasses, it uses its leaves, which are notched as if by design, as 
an ape uses its hands, to climb up to the sunshine. Other facts 
showing similarity of nature, make it probable that plants have 
evolved by the same law as animals. 

Professor William B. Eidenour : — 

The study of botany is, throughout, illustrative of the principles 
of evolution. The gardener in a few years, by his skill, does what 
it takes nature' centuries to accomplish; but he must do his work 
over and over again, as there is a strong tendency to deteriorate 
and revert to the original type. Nature's work, gradually adapt- 
ing the organism to environing conditions, is more permanent. 

Mr. James A. Skilton: — 

Human progress is largely dependent on botanical conditions, 
and the character of a vegetation largely determines the character 



136 Evolution of Vegetal Lift. 

of the men of a given locality. The thistle which Adam cursed, 
according to tradition, is a product of cZe-volution, botanists as- 
sure us. By studying the laws and conditions of evolution in its 
total range, we have the materials for a science of prophecy, 
which may ultimately enable man to lay hold on the future, and 
greatly hasten the progress of civilization. 

De. Robert G. Eccles: — 

All science in one sense is pre- vision or prophecy. The botan- 
ical divisions of plants are arbitrary, and do not indicate an ab- 
solute separation of species. The difference between those most 
alike in different genera is no greater than between some which 
are classified as belonging to the same genera, but of distant or- 
ders. The plants of China and the northern part of America are 
so much alike as to indicate a common origin in the present Arc- 
tic region when the two continents were united, and a warmer 
climate existed in the polar regions. 

DPw Lewis G. Janes: — 

A notable distinction between the organic and inorganic king- 
doms is observed in their different methods of growth — the lat- 
ter by accretion, or simple addition to bulk; the former by intus- 
susception, or displacement and renewal of particles throughout 
the whole tissue. On the theory of spontaneous generation, sci- 
ence has not yet explained how one method was exchanged for the 
other, in the passage from inorganic to organic structure. 



EVOLUTION OF ANIMAL LIFE 



BY 
KOSSITEK W. RAYMOND, Ph.D. 



COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED 

IN CONNECTION WITH ESSAY VI. 

Darwin's Origin of Species; Haeckel's Creation; Spencer's Biolo- 
gy; Huxley's Palaeontology and the Doctrine of Evolution (in Cri- 
tiques and Addresses), Lectures on Evolution, and On the Origin of 
Species; Lyell's Geology, and Lamarck and Damvin, and Various 
Theories as to Species; LeConte's Geology; Wallace's Contribution 
to the Theory of Natural Selection, Geographical Distribution of 
Plants and Animals, and Malay Archipelago ; Chapman's Evolution 
of Life; St. George Mivart On the Genesis of Species ; Powell's Our 
Heredity from God; Karl Semper' s Animal Life as affected by the 
Natural Condition of Existence ; Eansom Dexter' s The Kingdoms 
of Nature. 



EVOLUTION OF ANIMAL LIFE^ 



Any subject displayed systematically — as, for instance, 
in tabular form — may be examined in two ways. We may 
read the columns of the table vertically, or horizontally ; 
and each method reverses the principle of classification 
upon which the other is based. Thus, in Mr. Herbert 
Spencer's famous sociological tables, if we take the sheet 
devoted to a given nation, and read the columns vertically, 
we obtain in each column a record of the progress of that 
nation in some one particular, such as music, literature, 
mechanic arts, government, social customs, etc. ; while by 
reading across the columns horizontally, we obtain, for the 
period represented by the line we follow, the condition of 
the nation in all these particulars. Which way is the best, 
depends on what we wish to study. If England in the 
tenth century is our special subject, we read horizontally; 
if the history of music in England is our subject, we read 
vertically. 

Now Evolution can be exhibited in a similar way. We 
may conceive the different departments of Cosmical, Inor- 
ganic, Vegetable, Animal, Human, Social and Spiritual Ev- 
olution as constituting the first vertical column, while in 
other columns, under the heads of Philosophical, Geolog- 
ical, Morphological, Embryological, Geographical, Histor- 
ical and Experimental, we may give the proofs and facts of 
Evolution for each department. Which way should this 
table be read? Horizontally, if we are satisfied as to the 
truth and fully informed as to the nature of Evolution; 
vertically, if we wish to get the force of its evidences, and 
a comprehension of their nature. 

In the plan of this course of lectures, the horizontal lines 
have been followed ; and I am to speak to you to-night on 
the Evolution of Animal Life, avoiding, as far as possible, 
the proofs and illustrations furnished by the fossil remains, 
the life-history, the distribution and the variation of plants. 

* Copyright, 1889, by The New Ideal Publishing Co. 



140 Evolution of Animal Life. 

This seems to me unfortunate ; perhaps because it shuts me 
out from those wide generalizations which are so much easier 
for both speaker and hearer than the patient study of de- 
tails. Some one has said that any smart young man, with 
pen, ink, and paper, can compose a scheme of cosmogony 
in two hours. Something like this was done by Poe, in his 
essay, "Eureka," stating a theory of the universe which, 
he said, must be true because it was so beautiful. The 
trouble with such arguments is, that we are not able to 
say what is beautiful until we have discovered what is 
true. Still, they have a wonderful charm for us. I think 
the very general acceptance of the philosophy of Evolution 
which has come about within the last twenty-five years has 
been largely due to the perception of its beauty, as a har- 
monious and comprehensive arrangement of all phenomena. 
And if I were only permitted to traverse the table to-night 
vertically, instead of horizontally, I should feel much more 
certain of entertaining, if not instructing you. In fact, 
there is no telling how brilliant would be the address I am 
not going to make ! Let me smother my regrets and awak- 
en yours, as I come humbly down to the horizontal method, 
and confine myself to my theme : the evolution of animal 
life. 

Under this title, I do not understand that the origin of 
animal life by evolution from plant-life, or the origin of 
the organic by evolution from the inorganic, is meant, al- 
though a strict construction might require that meaning. 
In such a sense, little could be said except in demonstration 
of ignorance. Until a sharp dividing line between plants 
and animals can be established, it is not likely that we can 
philosophize to much purpose as to whether and how that 
line was crossed by evolution. And as to the doctrine of 
abiogenesis, or the spontaneous generation of organic life, 
its truth has neither been proved by trustworthy experi- 
ments nor disproved by the failure of such experiments. 
Nor does that failure discredit in any degree the philosophy 
of evolution. Indeed, Professor LeConte, one of the latest 
and most lucid of writers on this subject, deduces from his 
second fundamental law of evolution the corollary, that if 
spontaneous generation ever took place, it necessarily can- 
not be possible now. To this extent, I do not follow him. 
It is sufficient here, however, to point out that the origin 



Evolution of Animal Life. 141 

of animal life lias little to do with our present subject, which 
is the operation of evolution in the animal kingdom, or, in 
other words, the evolution of animal forms. This involves 
more particularly the consideration of the Darwinian hypoth- 
esis ; but, at the risk of seeming superfluously simple and 
trite, I venture a prefatory explanation of the distinction 
between Evolution and Darwinism. 

I. What is the Evolution of Animal Forms ? 

LeConte happily describes Evolution as " continuous, pro- 
gressive change, according to certain laws and by means of 
resident forces." As applied to animals, it means that all 
existing forms, and all of which we have evidence from the 
past, have been produced by descent with modifications from 
pre-existing forms. 

The "laws" of this continuous change are merely formu- 
las to express in general terms its observed facts. As given 
by LeConte, they are : 

1. The law of differentiation, namely, the general fact 
of a constantly increasing range of difference among exist- 
ing forms. 

2. The law of the progress of the whole, namely, the gen- 
eral fact that, although there is retrogression and reversion in 
parts, the whole system steadily advances to higher func- 
tions and wider variety, like a tree, the upward and spread- 
ing growth of which as a whole is not measured by the 
irregular form or deficient development or retrogressive 
metamorphosis or death of any subordinate branch or leaf. 

3. The law of cyclical movement, namely, the wave-like, 
successive domination of types, which rise, reach a maximum 
and decline. 

These laws are not proofs of Evolution. Indeed, they 
were chiefly established in their completeness by Agassiz, 
the great opponent of that theory, who read in them mere- 
ly the expression of the order in which successive forms 
have been introduced. 

It is the third clause of LeConte 's definition, " by means 
of resident forces" that characterizes the theory of Evolu- 
tion. These resident forces are internal (determining he- 
redity, variability, functional adaptability, etc.) or external 
(the forces exercised by climate, supply of food, enemies 
and rivals, etc.) The latter are summed up in the phrase, " the 
environment." Evidently the forces which are internal to 



142 Evolution of Animal Life. 

any one individual are part of the environment to other 
individuals, even of the same species, with which it may 
come into competition. 

Now the theory of Evolution is that in some way, by the 
combination of such interior and exterior forces, successive 
animal forms have been produced. How this probably took 
place, it not necessary to show, in order to establish Evolu- 
tion as the most rational explanation of the facts. It is 
quite true that a plausible suggestion of the mode of Evolu- 
tion would greatly assist in recommending the theory ; but 
it is conceivable that an argument may exist - — and, in fact, 
such an argument does exist — based on undisputed observa- 
tions, and establishing the theory of some sort of Evolution. 
In other words, a man might with perfect consistency believe 
that animal forms had originated by descent, and yet reject 
the Darwinian hypothesis as a complete or half-complete 
statement of the mode. He might think that Darwin's 
formula left out more important factors than any of those 
it contained. 

This is, indeed, the attitude, to a greater or less extent, 
of the great body of scientific men at the present day. The 
Darwinian agents of natural selection and sexual selection 
are very generally held to have less controlling importance 
than he (or rather, his ardent disciples — for Darwin was 
not an extreme Darwinist ) gave to them, in their first en- 
thusiasm. Mr. Spencer, and many eminent naturalists (es- 
pecially in America ) lay greater weight upon laws and pro- 
cesses, some of which are known, and others only surmised, 
by which, more definitely than by natural selection as he 
conceived it, specific stability has been determined. 

And this is the secret of the occasional announcements 
which we hear (mostly, I am sorry to say, from the pulpit), 
that Evolution has had its day, and is already on the wane ; 
that the best scientific authorities are rejecting it, and so 
on. How far this is true of Darwinism, we shall presently 
see. Of Evolution, in its wider sense, it is not true at all. 
The victory of that philosophy is complete ; and the sooner 
theology realizes it, the better for theology. 

II. What is the Theory opposed to Evolution, in 
the Animal Kingdom ? 

The opposite theory is, that species are substantially per- 
manent, originating, each in its present form, in a first pair 
or pairs ; spreading by migration ; forming, perhaps, varieties 



Evolution of Animal Life. 143 

or races but never truly new species ; and, when extinguish- 
ed, being replaced by other species of similar independent 
origin. 

It is important to note what is really involved in the 
issue thus stated. 

1. The theory of independent specific origins does not 
necessarily imply an appeal to direct, miraculous, special 
acts of creation, outside of natural law. Its most zealous 
advocates have always asserted the creative power in ordi- 
nary birth. The catechism asks, "Who made you 9 ." not 
"Who made Adam?" The answer is "God"; not "My 
father and mother." And the old theory of specific origin 
requires no greater miracle than birth. It involves merely, 
first, the denial that species have originated from one an- 
other ; and secondly, the declaration of complete ignorance 
as to the manner in which they did originate. 

On the other hand, Evolution does not exclude the Divine 
agency, but simply presents a process in which that power 
may act as truly as in the process of birth. If the evolution- 
ist does not believe that God made him and you and me, 
he will probably not believe that God made anything. But 
there is nothing in Evolution to force him to that conclusion. 
In short, the whole controversy can be carried on perfectly 
well by atheists, or by theists, on both sides ; and the odium 
anti-theologicum, as well as the odium theologicum, is quite 
out of place in it. 

2. Neither theory involves the denial of design in the 
universe. Evolution, indeed, indicates a far wider, more 
harmonious and more comprehensive design, to one who is 
willing to see any ; but pantheist, agnostic or atheist may 
hold either view of the origin of species. There were athe- 
ists plenty, before Spencer and Darwin were heard of. 

3. Neither theory affects the authority of Scripture. 
Even the most extreme believer in the infallibility of the 
letter of Scripture finds no description there of the manner 
in which God " created the heavens and the earth," or the 
succession of living things, or man " out of the dust of the 
earth." He finds no statement of a specific act any more 
precise than that of a hundred natural phenomena, the sec- 
ondary causes of which are now known. " He toucheth the 
mountains, and they smoke ! " Does that contradict the 
theory of volcanoes ? 

Moreover, in the interpretation of Scripture (still on the 



144 Evolution of Animal Life. 

basis of the most extreme view as to its infallible authority), 
the very first step is the inquiry, what the particular Scrip- 
ture interpreted is : Poetry, Law, Drama, Prophecy, Parable, 
Piction, Proverb, Quotation, Philosophy, Doctrine, Prayer, 
History, Legend, Myth, or Allegory. They are all there ; and 
though some of them are easily recognized, the nature of 
others is not so clear, especially when they are mingled to- 
gether, as is often the case. Hengstenberg, the great ortho- 
dox interpreter of Messianic texts, declares, in his " Chris- 
tology of the old Testament," that some of these prophecies 
were intended to have a literal, others only a spiritual, ful- 
fillment ; and that the way to tell them apart is very simple. 
Those which have had a literal fulfillment were intended to 
have it ; and those which have failed in that respect were spir- 
itual. This leaves a third class, for the fulfillment of which 
we must wait, before putting them under one or the other 
head ! 

I shall not stop to criticize this method of handling 
Scripture, more than to point out how little it leaves of real 
authority, even in an infallible text. Applied to the first 
chapter of Genesis, it has given us, not an inspired and ac- 
curate scientific guide, revealed through Moses, but Hugh 
Miller's and Professor Hitchcock's, and Professor Guyot's, 
and Professor Tayler Lewis's, and Professor John Phin's, 
and a hundred other explanations of Genesis, modified to 
suit the successive advances of geology. I complained once 
to Mr. Beecher that the clergy would not stand still in their 
interpretations of Moses. Said I, "If you have got an au- 
thorized revelation, why don't you give it to us ? " " My 
boy," he replied, in a mysterious whisper, " It is all your 
fault ! If you geologists will once tell us, finally and ab- 
solutely, what science proves, we will give you the exact 
meaning of Moses on the following Sunday ! " 

Now, this attempt to preserve the nominal infallibility 
of Scripture, while substituting for it in reality the author- 
ity of variable interpretations — as the fiction of the divine 
right of a powerless Emperor has often been maintained by 
Princes who did what they liked in spite of him — may be 
a great mistake. I think it is. But what I want to say at 
present is, that physical science is not its chief antagonist. 
The notions of the inspiration, authority and literal infalli- 
bility of the Bible are not attacked, as has been popularly 
supposed, by astronomy, geology, biology and Evolution, 



Evolution of Animal Life. 145 

but by archaeology, philology and historical and literary 
criticism. It is the analysis of Scripture itself, its struc- 
ture, its origins, and its meaning, which has undermined and 
shaken the post-Eeformation doctrine, put forward with 
ludicrous audacity as ancient and orthodox ; and it is this 
study of the Bible itself which will restore to us the truly 
Scriptural and truly Christian doctrine of inspiration. 
With that contest, the physical and biological sciences have 
little or nothing to do. 

4. Neither theory necessarily either involves or excludes 
the origin of species from single pairs. Darwinism, as first 
propounded, may seem to require a numerous ancestry ; yet 
even this condition ceases to be necessary under the latest 
form of that hypothesis. But, however that may be, Evo- 
lution makes no such requirement. Nor, on the other hand, 
does the independent origin of species require a single pair ; 
since it is equally conceivable that the natural or super- 
natural cause which could produce one pair could produce 
any number at the same time. 

III. The Inquiry. 

Having thus cleared the ground of misleading and 
confusing side-issues, we may freely inquire whether 
species are permanent or plastic ; whether they origi- 
nated independently, or by descent with modifications. 
The argument cannot be a mathematical demonstration. 
It remains to the end a weighing of probabilities. And 
you will doubtless be relieved to hear that it is not the pur- 
pose of the remainder of this lecture to state it in detail. 
You will pardon me for saying that I am no great believer 
in the usefulness of lectures for such a purpose. They may 
stimulate, suggest and assist ; but they cannot replace the 
study of books which alone will enable you to appreciate 
the considerations urged on either side. Fortunately, there 
are books enough, both learned and popular. 

What I purpose now, is simply to lay out before you the 
elements of the discussion, and to explain, briefly, and there- 
fore incompletely, its general situation at the present day, 
particularly as regards the Darwinian hypothesis, as a mode 
of Evolution. 

First of all, we start with a postulate, common to both 
sides, namely, that the universe is a system addressing it- 
self to reason (whether it be, or be not, the product of a 
Divine reason). The sequence of cause and effect is uni- 



146 Evolution of Animal Life. 

versal, and identical effects, or consequents, must be ascribed 
to identical causes, or antecedents. We are conscious of in- 
definite liability to mistake in the application of this prin- 
ciple ; but our faith in it remains unaltered and fundament- 
al. Hence, when we are able to say with high probability 
of any phenomenon that it is, together with all related phe- 
nomena, in all respects exactly as if it had been caused in a 
certain way, we conclude, subject to correction from larger 
knowledge, that it was so caused. 

And while waiting and working for such larger knowledge, 
we proceed, and are right in proceeding, exactly as if our 
inference were correct. In scientific phrase, we make it 
our "working-hypothesis." Thus, when we find rocks dis- 
posed in layers exactly as iy they had been deposited as sedi- 
ments of sand or clay from water, we conclude that they 
were so deposited. When we find in them forms which re- 
semble perfectly the remains of animals buried in such sedi- 
ments, we conclude that the bodies of animals were so buried. 
The monkish fathers, who declared fossils to be but evi- 
dences of the Almighty power which was able to make such 
simulacra, to mock the human reason, were as false to 
religion as to science. God issues no counterfeit bills. 
The inscriptions He writes — if we can only make them 
out — are true. The question then is, what do the phe- 
nomena of animal life and its records in the earth's crust 
indicate as the probable cause of the present and past variety 
of species ? 

IV. Admitted Pacts. 

It is a remarkable circumstance that there should be so 
little controversy as to the facts, however much opinions 
differ as to their significance and relative importance. The 
following list will suffice to recall the facts admitted by 
all parties. 

A. The lapse of vast periods of time since the intro- 
duction of animal life on the earth. 

B. Continuous change in geological, geographical, topo- 
graphical, climatic and other conditions, constituting the 
environment. 

C. The successive appearance of different species, in a 
certain general order, exhibiting the laws of differentiation, 
progress of the whole, and cyclical movement. The first 
law is shown in "prophetic types," or forms combining the 
characteristics of two groups, which are found to have ex- 



Evolution of Animal Life. 147 

isted before the appearance of either group ; the second, in 
the recognized advance of life on the whole, as for instance, 
in the series Mollusk, Fish, Reptile, Mammal, Man; the 
third, in the successive culmination of each of the groups 
of the series just named, in the Silurian, Devonian, Meso- 
zoic, Tertiary and Quaternary, and Present geological ages 
respectively. 

D. The inclusion of all past and present animal forms 
within a few great, persistent types of structure. (Proto- 
zoans, Radiates, Mollusks, Articulates and Vertebrates.) We 
think mostly of the Vertebrates, when we speak of ani- 
mals. In the series just named as an illustration, all the 
members except the first are vertebrates. Yet of more than 
500,000 species determined, the vertebrates number only 
25,000. It is a noteworthy fact that of the myriad other 
forms not one has ever been found that could not be recog- 
nized as belonging to one of the few great types mentioned. 

E. The facts revealed by comparative anatomy concern- 
ing the adaptations to special uses, within each type, of the 
structural elements common to the type, or their retention 
without use — the facts of homology, morphology, rudi- 
mentary organs, etc. 

F. The facts of embryology — particularly the wonder- 
ful passage of the embryo through successive stages of re- 
semblance to features characteristic of species of earlier or- 
igin, in the order in which those species appeared in nature. 
This phenomenon is not everywhere discernible ; but it has 
been ' proved in certain instances — notably with regard to 
the brain of the human embryo, which resembles succes- 
sively that of a fish, a reptile, and a mammal, before assum- 
ing human shape and proportions. There are other facts of 
embryology, of which time will not permit the mention here. 

G. The geographical distribution of species. 

H. The fact that, within the life of a single individual, 
organs are affected in size and structure by change of func- 
tions, use or disuse, and, to some extent, directly by the 
environment. 

I. The fact of heredity : that offspring always resemble 
their parents and ancestors, and that inherited peculiarities 
are likely to ,be intensified when both parents or many an- 
cestors have possessed them. 

K. The fact of variation : that offspring are never ex- 
actly like their parents, but combine individual character- 



148 Evolution of Animal Life. 

istics with the features of ancestral resemblance. The 
facts, both of variation and of heredity, are known but im- 
perfectly ; and their laws have not been discovered. 

L. The fact of multiplication, namely, that even the 
slowest-breeding species of plants or animals, if permitted 
to increase at its normal rate, would have crowded the globe 
long ago, as is shown not only by theoretical calculations, 
according to the rules for the summation of geometrical 
series, but also by well-known and recent instances, in which 
single species, imported into regions new to them, have 
spread with astonishing rapidity, sometimes to the extinc- 
tion of native species. The Canada thistle and the Norway 
rat in this country, the wild horses of Mexico, the English 
grasses in Australia and the rabbits in Tasmania, are famil- 
iar and striking examples. 

M. The fact of population, namely, that this rapid nor- 
mal increase does not, in general, take place, but, on the 
contrary, the numbers of each species, in the absence of de- 
cisive changes introduced by nature or man, remain com- 
paratively stationary. Occasional decimation, as, for in- 
stance, by exceptional weather or famine, is quickly made 
good by the increase of the species again to its normal pro- 
portion. The disturbance of this proportion by man is oft- 
en followed by the rapid increase of some other species, 
previously held in cheek by the one he has destroyed or 
driven away. 

N. The fact of the effective life-period, as concerned in 
this inquiry, namely, that animals have fulfilled the func- 
tion of life when they have been born, grown to maturity, 
produced and (in some cases) nurtured their normal number 
of offspring. Until these functions are completed, death 
is premature; afterwards, it is natural, and, so far as this 
inquiry is concerned, relatively insignificant. N, it will be 
seen, includes the sphere of "sexual selection." 

O. The fact of competition and struggle among individ- 
uals and species and against the forces of nature, for food, 
strength, shelter, victory over enemies or escape from them, 
and for the production of offspring, etc., in short, a struggle 
for effective life, as defined under N. 

P. The fact of the u premature" death of the majority 
(generally the vast majority) of each generation. 

Q. The production, by selection and close breeding, of 



Evolution of Animal Life. 149 

artificial varieties of plants and animals, showing peculiar- 
ities as marked as those of species. 

B. The intersterility of species and the interfertility of 
varieties, together with the phenomena of inversion to the 
ancestral form. 

V. Deductions from the Facts. 

We may for convenience recapitulate the foregoing facts 
under brief titles, thus : 

A. Time ; B. Change of Environment ; C. Succession of 
Forms ; D. Types ; E. Homologies ; E. Embryonic Stages ; 
G. Geographical Distribution ; //. Direct Organic Modifi- 
cations ; I. Heredity ; K. Variation ; L. Multiplication ; M. 
Population; N. Effective Life; 0. Competition; P. Pre- 
mature Death ; Q. Artificial Selection ; B. Intersterility of 
Species. 

And for further convenience, we may refer to these facts 
by the letters which designate them, by which device we 
shall be enabled to put in small space our summary state- 
ment of the discussion. 

A to G inclusive are so much better explained on the 
theory of some derivation of species by descent, than in any 
other way, that Evolution, to this extent, may be said to 
have been fairly established. In the present state of our 
knowledge, we are obliged to say that the facts are as if 
specific derivation had taken place, and we cannot believe 
that either natural law or a rational Creator is mocking us 
with delusive appearances. Nor do the advocates of inde- 
pendent specific origins suggest any theory whatever to ex- 
plain how these indications of relationship have been pro- 
duced. 

G, it must be confessed, lends itself to either view, so far 
as the distribution of species is the result of migration. 
But in many respects, it is more in harmony with Evolution ; 
and the one point which has been suggested as a difficulty, 
namely, the absence of any shading-off or blending of spe- 
cific peculiarities on the borders of the geographical habitat, 
is founded in a misconception. " Missing links " are to be 
sought in the past, not in the present; at the junction of 
branches, not in the air between their extremities. 

-H" is the "Lamarckian" factor, and, together with I, was 
principally relied upon in the theories of descent suggested 
by Lamarck, the elder Darwin, Robert Chambers (author of 



150 Evolution of Animal Life. 

"The Vestiges of Creation") and others. But the notion 
that changes produced in the individual could he accumu- 
lated by simple inheritance into permanent specific struct- 
ural peculiarities, was rejected as inadequate. So indeed it 
was, standing alone ; but as factors in derivation, according 
to our present conception of that process, the Lamarckian 
or interior resident forces are gaining wider recognition. 

Darwin's theory includes H, but is based mainly on / to 
P inclusive, with A and B. We might symbolize it as fol- 
lows, taking care not to attach a mathematical meaning to 
our equations : 



(1) MN=L 

(2) LO=P 

(3) L— P=M= 
IL 



L 

KO 

TT, 
(4) MI = 



KO 

(5) -fiL}AB=AQ=K. 
v C KO > 

Or in words : 

1. The number of individuals in a given generation of a 
species, who complete the functions of life, produces by the 
law of multiplication the number which will compete for 
similarly complete life in the next generation. 

2. In this multiplied offspring, competition causes the 
premature death of the majority. 

3. The remainder constitutes the effective population 
for that generation, and since it will tend to consist of those 
individuals best fitted for N, it will be the result of individ- 
ual differences according to K, and will constitute a fraction 

of L, determined by K and 0. is therefore a symbol 

J KO 

for " the survival of the fittest." 

4. The population of the fittest survivors, thus preserv- 
ed, will tend through / to intensify its advantageous pecu- 
liarites, in each succeeding generation. 

5. This process, continued long enough (A) under the 
changes of environment (B), will produce results like those 
of artificial selection, and moreover, will bring about, as ar- 
tificial selection might do if continued long enough, true 
physiological species, characterized by intersterility. 



Evolution of Animal Life. 151 

The Lamarckian equation, on the other hand, might be 
written ABHI=R. 

VI. The Failure of Darwinism. 

Now the Darwinian argument, as shown in equations 1, 
2 and 3, is unquestionably sound. There is a competition 
for life and there must be a survival of the fittest. It is 
in equation 4, with the introduction of 7, that the trouble 
begins. For R belongs in this equation too, and R cannot 
be had without A . It is therefore extremely doubtful 
whether the theory provides for R. 

In other words, according to the Darwinian formula, 
the results of natural selection are achieved "in the long 
run"; the amount of the variation selected by nature 
through competition is, for any single generation, accord- 
ing to this theory, extremely small ; and the analogy of arti- 
ficial breeding which it invokes calls for the production first 
of interfertile varieties, which shall harden in time into in- 
tersterile species. But what is to prevent these varieties 
from being swamped in the very first generation by cross- 
breeding with the parent stem ? Again, if the struggle for 
life results in the perpetuation of useful variations only, 
why should not specific characters not belonging to this 
class go on varying ? As a matter of fact, it is the ge- 
neric rather than the specific peculiarities which are most 
clearly advantageous. 

Mr. Darwin foresaw these difficulties, as what did not 
that patient and candid investigator foresee ? They center 
in the laws of heredity, variation and fertility or sterility, 
all of which are as yet relatively unknown. In his acute 
discussion of them, he followed still the analogy which had 
led him from the first, and assumed that the species created 
by nature began with interfertile varieties. He argued in- 
deed, in his " Origin of Species," that the intersterility of 
species is not produced by natural selection, but is due to 
unknown peculiarities of the reproductive system. 

VII. Darwinism as Perfected by Romanes. 

It was left for Dr. Romanes of London, to propound in 188G 
what is, as Professor LeConte justly observes, perhaps the 
most important, if not the only important, addition which the 
Darwinian theory has received, namely, the hypothesis that 
natural selection operates upon those varieties only which 
are not interfertile with other varieties ; in other words, that 
such peculiarities of relative intersterility are the factors 



152 Evolution of Animal Life. 

which determine, among the " fittest survivors," which shall 
"breed true, and so transmit their fitness. This hypothesis 
is 'based on a fact which may be added to our accepted cata- 
logue (though it is included under K), namely, the frequent 
intersterility of individuals of the same species, and the cor- 
responding interfertility of the same individuals otherwise 
grouped. The causes are both physiological and, among 
the higher animals, psychological. The former are almost 
wholly unknown to us ; the latter are evinced in repugnance 
and avoidance between the individuals. Whatever the 
causes, the phenomenon is undeniable. 

!N"ow the reproductive system of animals is most sensitive 
of all to causes of change ; and it is not improbable that in 
every generation of a wild species there exists this partial 
intersterility. Let us suppose, then, that out of a million indi- 
viduals competing for life in an environment which will sup- 
port 400,000, say 100,000 of the survivors possess a small 
advantageous peculiarity, while the other 300,000, though 
at some disadvantage, manage to live to the next generation. 
That is, there are 100,000 " fit " survivors, and 300,000 lucky 
ones. Assume that, out of this 100,000, there happen to be 
1000 individuals, who can or will pair with one another 
only. The rest breed freely with the unprotected but for- 
tunate 300,000, and the next generation gives us 1,000,000 
individuals again, of which say 2500 are the offspring of 
the close-breeding 1000. Perhaps only half of these retain 
both the protective peculiarity and the protective sterility 
or aversion. But it will easily be seen that while natural 
cross-breeding obliterates in each generation the majority 
of the variations, there is a protected close-breeding going 
on, which, if it only produces, at last, a single pair with 
well-marked and permanent peculiarities, and sterile toward 
the rest, has given the condition for a new species. 

And this process shortens immensely the time required. 
We know by experience how quickly a new species of su- 
perior fitness will exterminate or drive out all others. 

Migration is thus not necessary as an element of pre- 
servation to the fittest. It is the inferior which must run 
away. 

Again, this theory accounts for the preservation of pro- 
tective specific characters. It permits even the formation 
of new specific characters not protective. 



Evolution of Animal Life. 153 

The analogy of artificial breeding is deceptive in this : 
that we select plants and animals for their desired peculiar- 
ities, and prevent cross-breeding. We do not select out of 
the aggregate of forms we desire to perpetuate those which, 
besides having that peculiarity, are fertile with one another, 
but sterile towards the rest. Hence our varieties are sub- 
ject always to cross-breeding and reversion. In other 
words, we do not get specific sterility, because we do not 
breed for it. But Nature starts with that, and performs by 
her selection the close-breeding which we secure by artificial 
devices. 

Finally, this theory, which makes relative sterility with 
special interfertility one of the protective modifications 
upon which natural selection proceeds, is after all only a re- 
statement of the Darwinian formula itself. For the surviv- 
ors in each generation, retaining in most effective degree 
the advantageous peculiarities which distinguish them, are 
most likely to be the offspring of the protected parents on 
both sides. Cross-breeding will be punished by reversion 
and loss of advantageous peculiarities. 

This may be expressed in our fanciful symbolism by sub- 
stituting for Darwinian equations 4 and 5, the following : 

(4) 

(5) \J±-\ n AB=A\^} =B 

That is to say, natural selection acts twice on each genera- 
tion, selecting from the fittest to survive (M) the fittest to 
breed; and this process, repeated through numerous (n) 
generations produces physiologically permanent species, as 
artificial selection (Q) would do, if it were directed towards 
intersterility (M) as one of its objects, and continued 
through a sufficient period (A). 

What Mr. Darwin apparently overlooked was the proba- 
ble decrease in numbers of the pure-blooded variety, ac- 
companied by a complete isolation from related forms, un- 
til the new species takes its start, perhaps from a single 
pair, which, in its swift multiplication thereafter, sweeps 
away all the feeble varieties of the old stock which may 
have accompanied its history. 




154 Evolution of Animal Life. 

As I have said, the laws of heredity and variation are 
little known. It is in this direction, doubtless, that further 
light may be expected. But there is already light enough 
to permit us to see that the production of specific animal 
forms by derivation, and not by independent origin, is the 
only rational theory we can entertain ; that the Darwinian 
hypothesis, as now reinforced and complemented, is more 
satisfactory than ever as an explanation of the mode of such 
derivation ; and that, thus explained, the succession of life 
upon the globe falls into its place as a harmonious element 
in what I, for one, conceive *to be the vast, complex, yet or- 
derly and rational expression of an immanent, self -revealing 
God. 



Evolution of Animal Life. 155 



ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 

De. .Robert G. Eccxes : — 

Professor Raymond's method of presenting the subject strikes 
me as the most incisive and best of any I have ever read or 
listened to. It displays marked originality of arrangement and a 
keen, clear appreciation of the subject in every detail. The meth- 
od pursued in showing the evidence from embryology is particu- 
larly lucid, and no doubt perfectly understood by all present even 
though entirely new to some. 

I am pleased to note that Dr. Raymond is among the progres- 
sive evolutionists who have accepted Professor E. D. Cope's "Neo- 
Lamarckism." No purely mechanical theory can ever explain the 
present arrangement of things; and the evidence is multiplying 
that shows mind to be an active participant in the moulding pro- 
cess in the development of animal forms. Their desires and feel- 
ings direct their actions, and these in turn alter their shapes. 

I think that the speaker of the evening made a little too much 
of the argument from the infertility of crossed species. Darwin 
himself has shown that so far was this from being an insuperable 
objection, that, instead, it is just what we might expect in an evo- 
lutionary system. The only reason why we have not artificially 
produced infertile crosses, is the shortness of the time during 
which we have been experimenting. In the plant world, where 
generation is more rapid, it has been shown that there is a degree 
of kinship at which fertility is at its maximum, and that from this 
it shades off in both directions toward greater and greater infer- 
tility. The most remote will not blend at all. Those nearer will 
blend, but produce infertile progeny. Approach nearer still, and 
the progeny will run out in a generation or two. At the max- 
imum point no known limit is found. Get nearer than this, and 
fertility again diminishes ; we find some highly differentiated 
species infertile to their own pollen. Experiments have shown 
that artificial selection travels along this line, only it has not had 
time to reach the point of remote total infertility, or even that of 
infertility after a generation. Had the pouter pigeon been select- 
ed with reference to generation as it has in reference to shape, it 
is not unlikely that we would have had in it a true new species. 
It is manifestly impossible in an hour's talk to refer to every phase 



156 Evolution of Animal Life. 

of a subject so vast as that of the evolution of animal life. Many 
telling arguments in its favor must be neglected. 

The relations of island-life to the subject are most interesting, 
but did not happen to come under the speaker's consideration. 
Where islands are remote from a mainland, the type of life found 
thereon is usually unlike in the two ; and in proportion to remote- 
ness, so is difference. If streams and winds flow and blow from 
the nearest mainland, the type of life in each is nearer alike than 
is that of the island to that of any remote mainland. Under such 
circumstances fossil life heightens the affiliation, just as it should 
if evolution is true. When ocean-currents and trade- winds come 
from a remote mainland toward the island, then the life is very 
much unlike that of the near mainland, but markedly like that 
of the remoter place. But even here there is not identity. New 
varieties and new species exist in the two. The kinship is clearly 
marked, but time has effaced identity by the efforts of natural se- 
lection. Adaptation to new conditions has necessitated change. 

The story of geographical palaeontology is necessarily much 
mixed because of innumerable migrations from country to coun- 
try; but its general outlines are highly confirmatory of evolution. 
Excluding the contrast of places in the North Temperate Zone be- 
cause of undoubted pre-glacial migrations even across the arctic 
region, and a number of telling facts can be adduced. Conditions 
in the past isolated South America and Australia from such inva- 
sions, and what do we find there, accordingly ? The fossil animals 
of the latest tertiary rocks of the North Temperate Zone are like 
the living animals of the same region, but unlike those of Aus- 
tralia and South America. The same is the case of the last two 
when contrasted with each other and with the former. South 
America, for instance, contains Sloths and Armadillos, and its 
rocks reveal the sloth-like Megatherium and the armadillo-like 
Glyptodon. Its past fauna does not resemble that of Australia nor 
Europe, but bears a striking resemblance to its own living forms. 

The theologic bearing of evolution has frequently been referred 
to in the lectures of this course. That the doctrine is not anti- 
theistic can be most successfully maintained. It certainly leaves 
the God-idea free from the degrading implications of current 
every-clay thought. For a carpenter to make a chair may show 
great human skill on his part; but his power would be infinitely 
short of that of a being who could make a chair make itself. Even 
so, a God that could make a world might be quite a skilful artizan; 
but such a conception as applied to Deity is degrading. How 
much more sublime is the thought of an Omnipotent Being who 



Evolution of Animal Life. 157 

makes worlds make themselves ! Such was evidently the thought 
of the apostle who said, " By the word of his power were all things 
made." 

Professor P. H. Van dee Weyle: — 

I desire to present to the Association an autograph letter of 
Charles Darwin, never heretofore published, and of interest as 
bearing upon the subject of this lecture. It was written to my 
son, who was traveling in South America, and taking photographs 
of such noteworthy objects and animal remains as he thought 
worthy of preservation and subsequent study. Some of these pho- 
tographs, at my suggestion, he sent to Mr. Darwin, receiving this 
letter in acknowledgment. 

Letter of Charles Darwin: — 

The letter of Mr. Darwin, which was read to the Association by 
the President, Dr. Janes, is as follows: 

Down, Beckingham, Kent, 

September 29, 1S76. . 

Dear Sir: I am much obliged for the photographs which you 
were so kind as to send me. I have sent them to Professor Flower 
(one of the most capable judges in England) of the Royal College of 
Surgeons, where my specimens from the Bio Plata were deposited. 
He admires the fine specimens of Toxodon, and says that all the 
others apparently belong to Mylodon. I am extremely glad that 
you and your friends intend collecting the fossil mammals. I will 
make two or three suggestions, though perhaps superfluous. 

Judging from a distance, the Barrancas de Gregorio seem to me 
worth investigating; and it would be advisable to ascertain where 
these cliffs are contemporaneous with the Pampean formation. 
Secondly, as far as I know, the bones of the smaller mammals have 
not been collected, and these might be as valuable as those of the 
gigantic mammals: at M. Hermora, near Bahia Blanca, I found 
the remains of small species. Thirdly, it would be of paramount 
importance to find mammalian remains in the tertiary strata, such 
as those at Sta. Fe Bajada beneath and older than the Pampean 
formation. Near the mouth of the Uruguay I found such strata 
with great extinct oysters, and beneath these a formation in 
character quite like the Pampean, and which therefore it is prob- 
able would contain mammalian remains. 

Heartily wishing you success, I remain, dear sir, 

Yours faithfully, 

Charles Darwin. 



THE DESCENT OF MAN 



BY 

E. D. COPE, Ph.D., 
Author of "The Origin of the Fittest," Etc, 



COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED 

IN CONNECTION WITH ESSAY VII. 

Darwin's Descent of Man ; Haeckel's Evolution of Man ; Lyell's 
Antiquity of Man ; Huxley's Man's Place in Nature (in Critiques 
and Addresses); Winch ell's Pr e- Adamites ; Mivart's Man and 
Apes; Joly's Man before Metals; Schmidt's Doctrine of Descent 
and Darwinism ; Lubbock's Prehistoric Times ; M. F. Force' s Pre- 
historic Man; G. Dallas Lind's Man ; Nadaillac's Prehistoric Man 
in America; Nillson's Prehistoric Man in Skandinavia ; Evans's 
Ancient Stone Implements in Great Britain, and Bronze Implements 
in Great Britain; Kibot's Heredity ; Lewes's Probier.is of Life and 
Mind; Lindsay's Mind in the lower Animals; Quatref age' s The 
Human Race; Tylor's Anthropology, Primitive Culture and Early 
History of Mankind, 



THE DESCENT OF MAN.^ 



The modern doctrine of evolution is that theory of the 
origin of things as they now appear, which does not involve 
the introduction of energy from without. In this respect it 
is contrasted with the conception of creation. In biology 
it ranks man as one of the animals — the highest animal, 
if you please, but still an animal. The genealogy of man 
is therefore included with that of all species of animals. 
When the highest class, Mammalia, was developed, the pos- 
sibility of man resided in it. Man is a vertebrate and a 
mammal. The curiosity developed by the perception of 
man's evident relation to other Mammalia has been answer- 
ed by the discovery of the law of Evolution. 

We have now pretty nearly a complete record of the de- 
scent of man. Low down in the genealogical line of man 
are certain of the marsupials, or pouch-bearing Mammalia, 
which bring forth their young in a very immature condition, 
and carry and nourish them in a pouch until they become 
able to walk. These survive now only in Australia, and 
in the opossum of the Americas, though formerly they pre- 
vailed over the whole world. Above the Marsupialia are 
the Condylarthra, and from these branch out in one direc- 
tion the groups of ungulate mammalia — the hoofed quadru- 
peds — including the Proboscidia, the Amblypoda, and the 
Diplarthra ; which latter are in turn separated into the two 
sub-orders of Perissodactyla and Artiodactyla — those which 
divide the hoof, and those, like the horse, which walk prin- 
cipally upon a single median hoof. In another direction 
are developed the Unguiculata or clawed quadrupeds, which 
are divided into the Bunotheria, the Carnivora, or meat- 
eaters, the Edentata, the Chiroptera and the Rodentia. 

The human type is nearer to the hoofed type than to the 
clawed type, and branched off from the Condylarthra in a 
separate direction. Man is not developed from any existing 
order of anthropoid apes, though both belong to the sub- 

* Copyright, 1889, by The New Ideal Publishing Co. 



162 The Descent of Man. 

order Anthropomorpha, of the order Quadrumana, to which 
all the ape family belong. Man's ancestors, however, 
branched off from the ancestral line as low down as the 
lemurs, once prevalent mammalia in North America, but now 
nearly confined to Madagascar, and which greatly resemble 
the Condylarthra. From the lemurs we trace the monkeys 
proper, and then the anthropoid apes, which come nearest 
to man of all the mammalia. Their vertebrae differ from 
those of the monkeys, and resemble human vertebrae. In 
the brain, also, they are nearer the type of man than of the 
monkey. They have the third convolution of the frontal 
lobes, which in man is the seat of the power of language, 
and which is wanting in the monkeys proper. But the 
difference between these apes and man is considerable, if we 
leave generalities and confine ourselves to details. They 
■constitute in fact a separate family, the Simiidse, though 
belonging to the same sub-order. In the. sub-order Anthropo- 
morpha there are but the two families — the anthropoid apes 
and man. The sole external anatomical difference is the 
great toe, which in the apes is opposed to the other toes, 
while in man it is parallel with them. In man the last true 
molars (wisdom teeth) are protruded after the appearance of 
the canines. In apes and monkeys the wisdom teeth appear 
before the canines are fully in place. But remains of a 
monkey have been discovered in Europe in which it is thought 
that the wisdom teeth are yet unprotruded, although the 
canines have reached their full development. This is the 
Dryopithecus fontani, an ape of about the size of man. 

This, then, is the general view of the later stages of the 
genealogy of man. Those lines of descent in the Vertebrata 
carry within themselves the evidence that they have followed 
definite directions toward mechanical perfection, and attained 
definite results. We see this in the development of the 
limbs and of the other organs which tend to enable each 
group to live in the best possible manner. The Bunotheria, 
for example, have acquired claws, as a means of defense, 
and as an aid in climbing. The Bodentia have a different 
means of defense : they dig holes and thus escape from 
their pursuers. The bats have developed wings, and fly 
away. The lowest group, structurally, are the Edentata, 
whose general habit is to excavate for defense. The hoofed 
mammalia have developed powers of rapid locomotion, and 
can run away from their enemies. In the quadrumanous 



The Descent of Man. 163 

group we find none of the special characteristics of the 
others — but it has triumphed in the struggle for existence, 
as this audience shows. Man has neither fleetness nor 
fossorial abilities. His ancestors took to the trees and found 
in an arboreal life both greater safety and abundance of 
food. They trusted to their wits instead of to fleetness or 
strength, and became the most inquisitive and intelligent 
of animals. Monkeys resemble man in these respects far 
more closely than other animals — even the intelligent dog 
or horse. All monkeys are exceedingly suspicious, and that 
indicates wisdom. When tamed, they have a remarkable 
power of readily discovering the state of mind of their 
masters. Anthropoid apes are also intelligent, but for 
various reasons their habits have not been studied as 
closely as those of monkeys. The defenceless condition 
and social habits of the Quadrumana have been, it is thought,' 
the means of the development of their intelligence to a 
point which has made the human intellect possible. 

As to the period of geological time in which man first 
appeared, there is much doubtful evidence. We have some 
evidence of his existence in Europe, where the ground has 
been more thoroughly investigated than elsewhere, before 
the glacial period. Flints, to all appearances artificially 
manufactured, have been discovered by the Abbe Bourgeois 
in the Middle Miocene of France, which may have been 
made by man. As an alternative Prof. Gaudry suggests that 
they may have been made by the Dryopithecus. In America 
palaeolithic flints have been found in the glacial gravels of 
the Delaware valley, and, as I believe, in the upper Plio- 
cene beds of the West and South West. William Taylor 
has found palaeolithic implements in the same bed with 
G-lyptodon and extinct species of horses in S. W. Texas. 
Ameghino has found human bones in the Upper Pliocene of 
Buenos Ayres. We find also the remains of primitive races 
in caves, as at Neanderthal and elsewhere, and they have 
been collected in sufficient numbers to show that some of 
them represent a race distinct from all existing races, — the 
lowest type of man we know, while others do not differ 
materially from modern types. Their anatomical character- 
istics are similar to those of the anthropomorphous apes — 
as indicated by the thickness of the skull and lower jaw, 
the flatness of the tibia, etc. Man is the only quadrumanous 
animal possessing a chin. In the jaws of some of these 



164 The Descent of Man. 

cave-men the chin is almost wanting. A recent discovery 
of human remains of the pre-Indian period in Arizona, goes 
to show that primitive man was deficient in speech, as these 
skeletons retain the primitive distinction of other speech- 
less mammalia, in having the hyoid bones separated. In 
man as we now know him,, these bones are consolidated, 
forming a single bone. 

The general theory of descent rests upon the study of 
species in detail. There can be no doubt in the mind of 
the student that the specific lines of definition are movable. 
Each species has stages of variability, when it is com- 
paratively plastic, and susceptible of change, before it 
has developed an unyielding contour and form. After- 
wards they develop into fixed types, and do not evolve 
into other species thereafter. This is the condition in 
which we find most of the animal forms at the present 
day. Our cats, for example, are not variable, or are 
variable only within specific limits. Dogs, on the contrary, 
are very variable, and so are barn-yard fowls. Mankind is 
in a condition of plasticity or variability, and herein lies 
great promise of human progress in the future. 

In attempting to account for the evolution of man, we 
have two theories, one of Lamarck and the other of Darwin. 
Lamarck devoted himself to explaining the origin of 
species, but not to the special problem of natural selection. 
The post-Darwinians, as they have been happily named by 
Romanes, have generally accepted Darwin's hypothesis as 
a complete explanation of evolution, but we are beginning 
to see that Lamarck's views cannot be set aside, and that it 
is of great importance in explaining the origin of variations. 
Without it, natural selection would have no opportunity for 
operation. The Darwinians say that animals and plants 
have a tendency to variation. But nothing happens acci- 
dentally — there can be no variation without a cause. Seek- 
ing out these causes of variation is the province of a certain 
school of biologists at the present time. To this study, the 
great nations of the world are all contributing. Chemistry 
has been called a French science. In embryology Germany 
stands at the head. Palaeontology will doubtless constitute 
the contribution of America to this investigation. A rich 
field for this investigation exists in our Western States and 
territories, rivalled only by a similar field in the Argentine 
Republic. The fact that the earth cooled first at the poles, 



The Descent of Man. 165 

suggests that life began independently at each pole, and 
thence spread to other portions of the earth. Future investi- 
gations in the Argentine Republic are likely to throw much 
light on this theory, which cannot yet be said to be es- 
tablished as regards vertebrate animals. 

Following the line of descent, we find that many lines of 
progress have maintained themselves, and that these lines 
are not accidental or arbitrary. Here and there, indeed, we 
find that some magnificent capabilities have been switched 
off the track ; and for these progress has ceased. In other 
cases retrogression has taken place. A profound lesson 
may be drawn from the observation of this fact. We may 
be thankful that our ancestors got on the right track ; and 
if we did come from a humble origin we can rejoice in what 
we have attained, and reflect upon what we may escape in 
the future. 

The origin of variations can be traced to varied causes, 
and modifications are almost always explainable by careful 
study. The object of all things is to live ; and to secure 
the means of living is the end which they aim to accomplish. 
The motion consequent upon this effort is the active, and 
the environment the passive factor in development. One 
of the first principles in progress is the capacity to move 
from place to place. Those animals which become sessile, 
or fixed to one spot, cease to progress, and tend rapidly to 
retrograde. The structural changes are induced by contact 
with environing conditions, and by motion. There is pro- 
gressive evolution, and also retrogressive evolution ; progress 
and degeneration. The competition of the struggle for 
existence compels excellence. The absence of it tends to 
inactivity and degeneracy. Groups have thus arisen, and 
then fallen. The result on the whole has been a constant 
advance since the beginnings of life on the earth ; but the 
number of degenerate lines is nevertheless very great. 

The Lamarckian view that structure results from use is 
undoubtedly correct. In this way certain mechanical causes 
have induced changes in the skeletons and teeth of verte- 
brate animals. These hard parts determine the character 
of the entire organism, the softer portions conforming to 
them and being modified in the directions which their changes 
indicate. The original impulse is in the activity of the ani- 
mal. If all animals had been created alike they would at 
once have begun to act differently, and modifications would 



166 The Descent of Man. 

have resulted accordingly. The Darwinian hypothesis ex- 
cludes this important factor from the explanation of organic 
evolution. Natural selection proper does not account for 
the origin of intelligence, nor of design in structure; it 
only accounts for direction or tendency. Darwin's theory- 
is true, nevertheless, as far as it goes. It accounts for the 
destruction of certain peculiarities, and for consequent 
structural and functional modifications, but it does not ex- 
plain the origin of variations. Thus variation and natural 
selection combine to produce the results which we see in 
evolution. 

We have obtained in North America partly complete 
genealogies of most of the modern types of Mammalia, but 
these do not include man, although his earlier ancestors, 
the lemurs, are abundantly represented. The lines of the 
deer, camel, peccary, tapir, horse, rhinoceros, cat, dog, beaver, 
squirrel, and various other mammalian types are very com- 
plete. From their fossil skeletons we can trace the changes 
which have successively appeared during geological time, 
and can investigate the causes which have produced them. 
After a careful survey of the field I am of the opinion that 
the origin of new types in the hard parts can be ascribed to 
the interaction of mechanical impacts and strains, with the 
antagonistic force of persistence of type, and that whenever 
the former overcomes the latter, a new structure appears, 
which is transmitted sooner or later to the succeeding genera- 
tions. The evidence for this belief is abundant, and in some 
cases very simple ; in other cases it is more complex. This 
theory explains the exact adaptation of animal mechanisms 
to their uses, and renders clear the continued progress in the 
direction of mechanical perfection which we find to have 
taken place throughout the ages of geological time. An 
opposing theory (that of Weismann) holds that acquired 
characters cannot be inherited, but does not attempt to ex- 
plain the origin of variation. The evidence of palaeontology 
indicates that acquired characters have been inherited, though 
exactly how this has been clone requires explanation. 

Sensation exists in the lowest forms of animal life, and 
it is accompanied by memory. Sensation and memory ex- 
press the simplest acts of consciousness. A sensation ex- 
perienced is likely to be recalled by association. Even the 
lowest animals show discrimination in the selection of food, 
appropriating that which will nourish them and rejecting 



The Descent of Man. 167 

that which will not. So, the lowest forms of life show evi- 
dences of the possession of sensation and memory, and thus 
have the possibility of the development of mind. The re- 
sult of the possession of sensation and memory is the 
capacity for forming a simple- judgment. Insects such as 
the hymenoptera, like bees, wasps and also ants, show a 
marvellous development of intelligence, and no one doubts 
that they gained their intelligence in the same way as the 
higher animals. They have remained as they now are 
many geological ages. The ant and the bee do things with 
their own kind that man cannot do with his kind. They 
are practical stirpiculturists, and are more intelligent than 
many of the vertebrates. The ants have made as great a 
mark in the animal world as mankind has done. Thus 
they have called into existence numerous species, genera, 
and families of other animals that live on them. Among 
Vertebrata we have families of Batrachia (Cseciliidae); of 
lizards (Amphisbsenidae) ; of snakes (Typhlopidee) ; of birds 
(Formicariidae) ; and of Mammalia (Myrmecophagidae and 
Orycteropoclidse), six in all, composed of numerous genera 
and species, which live exclusively, or nearly so, on ants. 
Then ants maintain and propagate numerous parasitic spe- 
cies, mostly of insects. In Europe alone one hundred such 
species are known. Yet ants do not display the capacity 
for prompt adaptation to new circumstances so natural to 
man. Their action is now largely automatic, or fixed in a 
routine. Man has a great advantage over the rest of the 
animal kingdom in possessing a greater power of so-called 
voluntary choice in determining what he will do. This 
really means a higher intelligence. 

Sensation, even in its lowest form, is something more 
than the operation of a merely mechanical energy. It is 
not analogous, as some have affirmed, to chemical reaction. 
The tendency of energy in the inorganic world is to dissi- 
pate. Sensation is profitable to its possessors in enabling 
them to resist this tendency. The dead products of con- 
scious action are profitable — as witness the stored-up 
products of the chalk-cliffs and coal-beds so useful to man. 
In the combustion of coal we are liberating energy which 
was stored up by vital processes. The action of life has 
been to build, and not to destroy. 

Sensation is probably a quality of all life, even of vegeta- 
ble life in its first beginnings. All life-processes which are 



168 The Descent of Man. 

now automatic and mechanical were originated in sensation. 
Without sensation the animal kingdom could scarcely have 
existed except perhaps in its lowest forms. The perception 
of temperature is necessary to prevent destruction by freez- 
ing or burning. The senses of hunger and of propagation 
it is easy to perceive are necessary to the existence and per- 
sistence of animals as they are now organized. Sensation 
is also necessary to education. It is not the method of 
nature to produce intelligence out of unconscious bodies, 
but the reverse is the process ; viz., that habits of animals, 
both conscious and unconscious, are the product of education 
during conscious states. 

When we enter the realm of consciousness we are in a 
universe which is in some respects not subject to the scales 
and the measure of the materialist. No doubt every act of 
consciousness requires for its performance the expenditure 
of energy, but there are some of the functions of mind 
which are not correlated with the amount of energy expended 
in producing them, so far as relates to their mental quality. 
Of all mental acts this is especially true of the formation 
of a judgment as the result of a consideration of induce- 
ments, or reasons, or the mutual pressure of motives, 
JSTo matter whether the judgment be free or not, the con- 
sideration of, the estimation of, and surrender to, reasons, 
is a process outside the pale of the scales of the physicist 
or physiologist. This is the most important fact known to 
man. Its shows that although his mind is bound to its 
material basis, it controls that basis, within limits, by purely 
mental processes, which are per se entirely free from the 
trammels of matter, although they may not be free from 
the laws of mental action. 

Every time an animal performs a designed act for the 
first time, he makes a judgment. In other words every time 
an animal does anything for a reason, or as a choice between 
alternatives, he performs an act of judgment, until he has 
learned to do it so readily that the act has become automatic, 
or has become, in other words, instinctive. Thus every 
time such an act is performed there takes place an interfer- 
ence with the uniformity of action of the law of the conserva- 
tion of energy ; because a not weighable or measurable di- 
rection of energy takes place, i. e. in the movement of an 
animal's body. 

The progress of organic evolution has finally result- 



The Descent of Man. 169 

«d in the development of a race capable of ethical action, 
and with hopes and longings after the ideal and the 
supreme. This points to a yet higher development and 
a superior race. The pointers are all in one direction 
in regard to the future of life and its functions. I 
cannot believe, either, that life is limited to this globe. 
The scientific cosmogony of the present day forbids us to 
regard the earth as the center of the universe, either in a 
physical or a moral sense. It is not impossible that we may 
yet know something of life on other planets. Even if there 
is no truth in Sir William Thomson's theory that the germs 
of life were originally brought to this earth by meteors, 
these have already shown us, in their occasional loads of 
carbon, something in confirmation of the existence of life in 
other worlds than ours. 

The source of all the progressive mental evolution of 
man is sensation and experience. The pressure of human 
society upon each individual is the origin of ethical intelli- 
gence, of the knowledge of the rights of others ; while the 
social life and the family relation have developed the be- 
nevolent sentiments and the affections. The combination 
of the knowledge of right and wrong with the benevolent 
sentiments, constitutes the mainspring for ethical action, 
inspiring the doing of right and justice. The history of 
human evolution is therefore the history of the develop- 
ment of the human mind. And the human mind is but a 
small fragment of the universal mind. The development 
has been along fixed lines. No new material has been cre- 
ated. That which we behold in Nature's final product was 
involved in Nature from the beginning. 

From the point of view of the biologist, as to the rela- 
tion of mind to matter, we observe that mind everywhere 
manifests itself in correlation with material conditions, and 
we must conclude that mind is a property of the substance 
which exhibits it. On its ethical side, we observe that 
the ordinary way in which man has learned to do the 
right has been a destructive or violent way. The strug- 
gle for existence is a method which involves suffering for 
the individual, but its final results are beneficent. But 
thought and prudence will keep man ahead of the destruc- 
tive forces. The result of human experience in various 
lines has been the accumulation of a body of pure ethics, 
which when rightly understood will be interpreted as an 



170 The Descent of Man. 

invitation to keep ahead of the destroying Angel. The 
method of evolution and the conception of a beneficent 
tendency in the universe are not therefore necessarily con- 
tradictory. 

My friend, Major Powell, has recently affirmed in this 
city that man is exempt from the operation of the law of 
natural selection — that he has placed himself outside of 
the struggle for existence which prevails throughout the 
lower range of biological evolution. I do not see by what 
line of argument he can substantiate this view. The strug- 
gle still prevails in the competition which affects all our 
social and business interests, and it is likely to become 
greater rather than less as time goes on. Competition will 
increase as the population increases. jSTo expedients yet 
devised by man will wholly prevail to prevent this. Tariffs 
will not help us — they will only postpone the final 
reckoning. The severity of the struggle, however, will 
only occur when the land is crowded everywhere — a time 
which is yet very far off. The most useful form of charity 
is the distribution of population from the overcrowded cen- 
ters to the uncultivated lands of the interior. In this way, 
and by respect for the moral code which has been revealed 
to us by human experience, we may hasten the steps of 
progress, and long postpone the severity of the struggle 
which must otherwise constantly augment with the intensity 
of competitive effort. It is true, as has been asserted, that 
man relieves himself from the pressure of natural forces by 
the discovery and manufacture of mechanical contrivances. 
But this only constitutes a new element in the struggle for 
existence, which favors the discoverer, maker, and user, of 
such appliances, and constitutes them the fittest to survive,, 
as far as it goes. It is also true that the discovery and use 
of the steam-engine has augmented the power of human 
labor, it is said, seventeen-f old ; but this power, it must be 
remembered, is not equally distributed, but gives some men 
an advantage over others. And since men are not made 
"equal," even if they are "free," the gifts of power never 
can be equally distributed, and so long as that is the case, 
natural selection must operate. 



The Descent of Man. Ill 



ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 

De. T. Munsojs Coax: — 

It would be hard to add anything to the statements we have 
heard, so full of original thought, from Professor Cope. "We 
could not desire anything more. And yet I have come across 
something of which I would like to speak in reference to natural 
selection. On a Southern plantation it appears that a cotton- 
grower, a Mr. Alexander, I believe, found a cotton-plant which 
had a peculiar leaf: instead of being in four lobes it had five 
separate portions, like fingers of the hand, thus permitting freer 
access to the sunlight and producing a finer cotton-boll, and, more 
than that, furnishing no shade for caterpillars. This gentleman 
was an evolutionist, and reasoned that this plant would be better 
than the common variety ; he raised seed and cultivated it, and he 
found that it reproduced the same peculiar leaves, and he has con- 
tinued to cultivate it with very satisfactory results. Here is a 
case where natural selection is combined with artificial selection, 
and together these agencies will probably speedily introduce a 
great improvement in cotton culture, driving out the old plant. 
Professor Cope will, I think, agree with me that nature unassisted 
would have done the same thing, only it would have taken a much 
longer time. 

The question which comes to the front in this discussion is, How 
far does the principle of natural selection account for the ethical 
phase of human evolution ? I think that the force which made that 
variation in the leaf of the cotton-plant is a benevolent force, work- 
ing in all of us, morally and intellectually. The same force of en- 
vironment which operates as natural selection in the vegetable 
world, operates also in man. This force is somewhat akin to fatal- 
ism — or, rather, necessity. Organization and circumstances impel 
us to action, and action modifies our character. What we start with 
in life, — our inherited nature, — is inevitable, but not the rest. Our 
actions are the result of our character and volition, quite as much as 
cf environing circumstances. If we believe we are creatures of the 
environment we shall no longer struggle. Some of us, however, do 
make a fight against fate, and in spite of circumstances, we win. 
In this manner, it seems to me, we can make our ethical thought 
bear upon human evolution. 



172 The Descent of Man. 

Professor Henry S. Drayton: — 

It is not well to assume too much for the theory of evolution as 
applied to man. Let us dwell upon some doubtful points. It is 
easy to overstate theories. Let us first be sure of our facts. 
Haeckel, and those of his school, present a very beautiful theory 
of the descent of man, tracing resemblances to man in the lemur, 
the orang and the chimpanzee. They compare the gorilla to the 
degraded Australian; the Papuan and Negro to the chimpanzee. 
But it cannot be truly said that those animals possess the attributes 
of these races in any striking degree. The cranium of the dog is 
more delicately organized than that of the highly favored ape from 
which man is supposed to be descended. The embryonic argu- 
ment, too, is apt to be exaggerated. The embryos resemble each 
other for a time — but the significant fact is that they begin to 
change. Why ? Professor Von Hartmann of Berlin says that 
there is a wide difference in intelligence between the lowest man 
and the anthropoids. Man is capable of indefinite education, 
while animals are not. Again, man's immediate progenitor has 
not been discovered. Why not ? The division of the hyoid bone 
to which Professor Cope has alluded has been found to be a char- 
acteristic of the ancestors of the Zuni Indians, and still influences 
the peculiar voice and cry of the natives. In civilized man this 
bone has become solidified. Man is less perfect than many of the 
animals in many of his organs and functions. Why is this so if 
man is the highest product of evolution ? Sir John Lidbbock says. 
the anthropoid ape must yield the second place to the ant in the 
order of intelligence. The monkey must give way to the ant — he 
cannot toe the line. 

Dr. Lewis G. Janes: — 

Professor Cope has spoken of man's ability, through his own 
volition, to protect himself from the harsher features of the opera- 
tion of the law of natural selection, which appears fraught with 
so much pain, evil and loss along the lines of vegetable and animal 
evolution. I believe no one has called attention to the fact that 
Mr. Spencer, in his " Essay on the Law of Population" and else- 
where, brings out the idea that the law is self -correcting, so to 
speak ; that there exists in the nature of life a tendency which in 
human society will ultimately relieve man from the severest stress 
of the struggle for existence. As intelligence becomes more 
active in man and all along the line of animal evolution, we find 
that the tendency to increase of population diminishes ; so that, 
according to Spencer, there will come a time when the evil will 



The Descent of Man. 173 

right itself — when there will be a condition of equilibrium, when 
each individual will have an opportunity of developing every 
bodily and mental faculty without interfering with the equal 
opportunity of others. I throw out this suggestion merely as a 
provocative of thought; I will not pursue the subject farther at 
the present time. 

Professor Thomas Davidson: -3- 

I only wish to express my strong agreement with Dr. Drayton. 
I do not believe that form is any guide, necessarily, to intelligence. 
The mere fact that the ant, which is so small compared with the ape, 
stands next in intelligence to us, seems to me to prove that intelli- 
gence does not at all depend upon structural development. I am 
very little acquainted with the facts of biology. I was much inter- 
ested, however, a few years ago, in reading an article by Professor 
Virchow, in which he says there is no proof Avhatever that man is 
descended from the ape. He denied the descent totally. I am 
only surprised to hear such a man stand up and make this asser- 
tion in view of the general acceptance of the contrary opinion. I 
should like to discuss this question of the relation between mental 
power and physical development. How far are they subordinate, 
one to the other ? All evolution of structure has been the product 
of amoving force — the "growth force," as Dr. Cope terms it. 
That is just what Aristotle said : "The man learns the thing by 
doing, and as he does his physical strength increases." So all 
physical structure is the result of doing. One of the strongest 
motives to right action arises from a clear insight into this fact, 
that the human being is what he does ; and as he acts so in the end 
will he be. 

Dr. Robert G. Eccles: — 

Professor Cope has referred to those animal and vegetable forms 
which through inaction and lack of variety in environment, become 
sessile — they cease to grow. Some minds are affected in the same 
way. That is the trouble with Prof. Virchow — almost the only 
man eminent in science who can be quoted as anti-evolutionist: 
he is sessile. We had an eminent man in our own country who 
was similarly afflicted — Prof. Agassiz. He did not accept evolu- 
tion: he was sessile. Much of the criticism on the doctrine of 
evolution this evening has proceeded from a misapprehension of 
what it actually claims. ISTo living thing is evolved from another 
thing now living. The apes have had their line of development, 
and man has had his. The attempt to trace man from the ape as 



174 The Descent of Man. 

it is now known is not true evolution. True evolution must con- 
sider that apes have themselves changed since they branched off 
from the ancestra line of man. 

Our attention has been called to the fact that man's structure is 
not so perfect as that of lower animal forms. That is exactly as 
we might expect. If other animals have special tendencies, as 
Dr. Cope points out, they must develop special organs and adapta- 
bilities ; so we must expect to find in man many organs and facul- 
ties that we do not find in the lower animals, — some faculties more 
highly developed, others become rudimentary from disuse, — and 
vice versa. The nose of the dog is far more acute in perception 
than that of man. Special needs have produced special develop- 
ments, each in its own line. This, so far from being an argument 
against evolution, is the strongest possible argument in its favor. 
The intelligence of the ant has been adduced in opposition to evo- 
lution. The fact is, there is no special structure that can be said 
to be a structure of mind. Evolution is not confined to one form 
or type. You can perfect two different instruments in two differ- 
ent directions ; you can produce like results by entirely different 
means. The intellect of the ant and that of man manifest them- 
selves through different media. A certain organism may be neces- 
sary to produce a certain kind of intellect, but Nature is not limited 
to any one line of operation. 

In listening to Professor Cope to-night, I am reminded of all 
that he has done toward the revival of Lamarck's theory of evolu- 
tion — he has done more for this theory, indeed, than Lamarck 
himself. The appearance of Xeo-Lamarckism in biology contem- 
poraneously with Neo-Kantism in philosophy, is a very interesting 
fact. 

I must call your attention to the fact that the human structure 
is not made for an upright being at all : it is made for a quadruped. 
The arrangement and suspension of certain of the internal organs 
in man, and especially in woman, is such that they are perfectly 
adapted to a quadruped. If a human being had made man as he 
is, we should have said that he did not know what he was about. 
The diseases from which the fair sex suffer are to a considerable 
extent due to the fact that the organs of the pelvis were intended 
for a being walking on four feet. We have not yet adapted our- 
selves to the upright position. 

Then again, in the quadruped, the valves in the arteries and veins 
are so arranged that a perfect circulation of the blood is induced. 
Along the back, which is longitudinal, the force of gravity is suffi- 
cient to keep the blood in its proper channels. There is no need 



The Descent of Man. 175 

of valves, and there are none. But in man, who stands erect, and 
does need them, there are none either. Elsewhere in the human 
body we find them where they ought not to be, and fail to find them 
where they ought to be. These imperfections of structure are the 
fertile causes of diseases in man. On the ground of intelligent 
design and manufacture, these things are not explainable ; but on 
the ground of evolution, their significance is clear. 

Captain O. F. Burton : — 

Some forty years ago, I was on the coast of Australia, and I saw 
the natives of that country. I saw monkeys also. I observed 
little resemblance between them. Will Professor Cope state when 
the change from monkey to man began ? This Darwinian theory 
of the origin of the human race seems to me lower than the Mosaic 
theory. It is more unreasonable than the Christian miracle of the 
Immaculate Conception. 

Professor Cope : — 

In our theories we must leave room for and expect additions to 
our present knowledge. Hundreds of s'pecies of apes have existed, 
but knowledge of them is not yet complete enough to enable us to 
determine from what variety man is descended. Fragments of 
skeletons have recently been found in India which may throw light 
on the subject. Men not familiar with comparative anatomy cannot 
readily understand the resemblances between man and the lower 
animals; they think that because a gorilla, for instance, is hideous 
in external appearance, he cannot resemble man. These resem- 
blances consist largely in similarities in osseous structure, the 
number of teeth, etc. The resemblances between man and the 
ape are found in varying degree in the different races, each with 
some peculiarity more marked than with others. On the whole, 
the Bushman presents the greatest number of similarities to the 
ape. To one having a knowledge of comparative anatomy, and 
comprehending the facts bearing upon this question, there can be 
no doubt whatever that man has been evolved from a lower animal 
form. The evidence is all one way, and is conclusive. 



EVOLUTION OF THE MIND 



BY 

ROBERT G, ECCLES, M.D. 



COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED 

IN CONNECTION WITH ESSAY VIII. 

Spencer's Principles of Psychology ; Fiske's Cosmic Philosophy ; 
Daniel G. Thompson's System of Psychology ; Lewes' s Problems 
of Life and Mind; Bain's Mental Science and Mind and Body; 
Maudsley's Physical Basis of Mind; Clifford's Seeing and Think- 
ing ; Darwin's Expression of the Emotions in Men and Animals; 
Lindsay's Mind in the Lower Animals ; Romane's Mental Evolution 
in Animals and Mental Evolution in Man; Binet's Psychic Life 
of Micro-Organisms. 



THE EVOLUTION OF MIND.* 



The mind — where is it, what is it and whence came it ? 
For ages men have striven to solve these knotty problems. 
In studying the physical universe, we find that mocking 
nature played some solemn pranks, which if repeated in the 
psychical will account for our tardiness of progress in this 
direction. Immediate perceptions of sense have almost in- 
variably been illusory. The earth seems flat and at rest, 
but is round and in rapid motion. The blue dome above 
looks like a solid arch studded with specks of light, but is 
in reality immense vacuity with myriads of giant globes. 
The sun appears to rotate round the earth, but the earth goes 
round the sun. All we see seems as if out of us but is in 
reality pictured in the brain, f Science and theology clasp 
hands in declaring : 

'•This earth is but a fleeting show 
For man's illusion given." 

It required centuries of thought to triumph over the de- 
ceptions of matter. It may require other centuries to over- 
come those of mind. The controversy of idealism versus 
realism is not yet permanently settled,! and there are others 
of great importance that it will take many generations to 
make clear. § Of our own minds we have direct evidence. 
We can only know that other minds exist by our interpreta- 
tions of the movements of matter. Because of this, physical 
science had to precede mental. In tracing the leading- 
features of the genesis of the first, we may derive hints as 
to how we should approach the last. Before men began to 
philosophize and build up systems of thought it is reason- 
able to suppose that like children they took appearances for 
realities. Such a mind would take it for granted that the 
disappearance of a body of matter by vaporization was its 
total disappearance, and its reappearance by condensation 

* Copyright, 1889, by The New Ideal Publishing Co. 

t Reichert's Foster's Physiology, pp. 702-704. 

+ Huxley's Critiques and Addresses, pp. 310-317. Mind, Vol. 7, pp. 30-54. 

§ Bascoin's Psychology, pp. 380-401. 



180 The Evolution of Mind. 

its creation. When they began to see that these changes 
were mere metamorphoses, philosophy was born. The im- 
pressions of sense became connected by speculation.* For 
ages after this, hypothesis after hypothesis was evolved as 
to the origin of matter from one or more primal forms. f 
All this time they went on . committing the same blunder 
with energy, as had been done with matter. Heat, light, 
sound, motion and other modes were under incessant obser- 
vation, but no effort was made at connecting them together. 
They saw motion only as gross and rectilinear. Even as 
late as our own age, no less a man than Mayer believed that 
motion ceased when it became heat. J Now we see motion 
everywhere, and the Universe appears as a 

"Rushing metamorphosis o' erturning all that stable is, 
Melts things that be to things that seem, and solid nature to a 
dream." 

The advent of the doctrine of the Correllation and Con- 
servation of Forces made it possible for Mr. Spencer to 
formulate the philosophy of Universal Evolution. § Our 
belief in the indestructibility of matter and continuity of 
motion, are but phases of our inability to conceive of the 
non-persistence of the force of which they are manifesta- 
tions. || But this inexpugnable reality has another aspect 
than its dimensional one. IT An appreciation of this fact 
admonishes me of the utter fruitlessness of the effort at giv- 
ing a clear conception of the evolution of the mind to those 
who pretend to believe in the incessant creation and annihila- 
tion of psychic states. As looking behind matter to the 
persistent underlying reality forces us to believe in its inde- 
structibility, so an application of the same method of reason- 
ing to mind leads us to an identical conclusion. Divide 
matter as we will, we must at every step perceive that the 
pieces still have dimensions.** No jugglery of thought can 
conceive of two non-dimensional halves uniting to make a 
dimensional whole. Precisely the same kind of an impossi- 
bility of thought greets us in psychology. Divide mental 
or psychic operations as we will and we must at every step 
perceive. that it must remain psychic still. No jugglery of 

* History of the Inductive Sciences, Vol. 1, p. 43. 

t Rodwell's Birth of Chemistry, pp. 13-29. 

JTait's Recent Advances, p. 55. 

§ Spencer's First Principles (Appleton, 1873, p. 185). 

II Ibid, pp. 179, 184. 

ITFiske's Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. 2, pp. 444-4»l. 

** Cooke's New Chemistry, pp. 35, 36. 



The Evolution of Mini, 181 

thought can conceive of a psychic state coming from two 
or more non-psychic ones.* The human race has and can 
have no other basis for its belief in the indestructibility of 
matter than its inability to conceive of the non-dimensional 
becoming dimensional or the dimensional becoming non- 
dimensional. The weighings and measurings of the chemist 
are never accurate enough and never can become accurate 
enough to prove that minute traces of matter are not at 
every transformation created or annihilated. f If, then, the 
impossibility of conceiving dimensional body as becoming 
non-dimensional is a sufficient guarantee of matter's eternal 
indestructibility, by what process of thought can we reason- 
ably hold to a belief in the incessant destruction and cre- 
ation of soul-power ? No one can conceive of feeling or 
thought coming from that which has no element of either 
in its composition. Dimension can only be explained by 
dimension, awareness by awareness, and motion by motion. 
We can conceive of no adequate cause for extended body but 
extended body, for awareness (psychosis) but awareness, or 
for motion but motion. They are our last possible analyses 
of the phenomena they represent. $ Evolution as related 
to these is grossly misunderstood by many of its believers. 
Matter evolves, motion evolves and mind (psychosis) evolves, 
but we have no evidence that any of them are created. 
They merely change from low to high manifestations. 
That is the totality of what constitutes evolution. § It is 
simply a re-arrangement of what is. This trinity of exten- 
sion,, motion and psychosis are, on examination, unknowable 
without each other. We cannot think of mind without 
thinking of something having that mind. We can know 
nothing of that something without mind. Mind sends us 
to extended body for an explanation of itself, and extended 
body sends us to mind for an explanation of itself. In but 
one way is reconciliation possible. We can view them as 
dual aspects of a common persistent reality. This you may 
call by any name you please, but Mr. Herbert Spencer 
rightly designates it " The Unknowable." || Looking into 
my brain you could see matter only, whereas when I look 
toward the same reality, only mind is perceived. The san- 



* Spencer's Psychology (18T2), Vol. 1, pp. 157, 158. 

t Nature, Vol. 9, pp. 420-484 (H. Spencer and Prof. Frankland). 

t Ibid, Vol. 10, p. 3 (Herbert Spencer). 

§Ribot's English Psychology, pp. 127, 128. 

II Spencer's Psychology, Vol. 1, pp. 161, 162. 



182 The Evolution of Mind. 

guine flood, of the circle of Willis may surge and beat in 
unison with, my heart, but all unknown to me. The rush 
and whirl of volitional and sensory nerve-force is in incessant 
play, but I know it not. The believer in special creations 
can hold to a belief in mind as separate from body, but the 
evolutionist must accept the doctrine of one persistent reality 
chat subjectively is mind and objectively matter.* Now of 
this something — the " cling an sick" of Kantf — material- 
ists try to wipe out the subjective aspect, and idealists the 
objective. It is as if two men should quarrel about whether 
the glass of a bottle all belonged to the outside or inside 
surface of it. It lies between both, but is neither. So long, 
however, as the glass persists, it will have opposite faces. 
So long as the unknowable persists, it is rational to believe 
that it will ever have an objective and a subjective aspect. 
If in sleep and coma mind is a total blank, creation must 
be a common occurrence and evolution an unnecessary ex- 
planation. That the sleeping is different from the waking 
state is evident, but as to how much different, and how 
different, careful study alone can determine. Awake and 
in a comfortable room, we give no attention to the tempera- 
ture, the atmospheric pressure, or our own breathing. Let 
any of these be disturbed and we know it immediately. In 
our sleeping moments may not our consciousness of all en- 
vironing forces be of this suppressed, non-attentive kind ? 
Men sleeping amid noise will awake if it ceases. On stopping 
a railroad train all its motion changes into heat. But heat 
is motion too. When the molecules of the train all go to- 
gether along the track we call it motion. When they indi- 
vidually vibrate at a given speed we call it heat. May not 
the sleeping and waking states of consciousness bear some 
such relationship to each other ? Let us try an experiment. 
Here, we will suppose, is a sleeping boy. " Berty ! " I call, 
but there is no reply. " Berty ! " I repeat, and he simply 
moves. In louder pitch, " Berty / " is once again repeated, 
when he awakes and asks, " What is it, papa ? " Did he hear 
first and then awake, or did he awake first and then hear 
me ? If he first heard, me and then awoke, he could not have 
been psychically asleep. If he awakened first and then 
heard me, the call took no part in his awakening. As the 
call did waken him, he must have observed a change in the 



*Fiske's Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. 2, pp 448-449. 
t Muller's Kant's Critique, Vol. 2, pp. 112-114. 



The Evolution of Mind. 183 

psychic state, to which he immediately turned attention. 
Should all the watches and clocks in a jeweler's store sud- 
denly stop, the jeweler would know nothing of it, if it did 
not change the condition of his awareness. Years of habit 
made him indifferent to the sound, so that he did not observe 
it; but the instant it stopped he was aware of the change. 
Let us next suppose it to be Christmas, and that Berty has 
received a long coveted toy which he is intently studying. 
In his abstraction he fails to observe our approach. 
" Berty ! " He does not hear. We repeat the name and he 
slightly moves. Calling in a louder tone, he hears and 
comes forward with his, " What is it, papa ? " His attention 
was in the thrall of an intense pleasurable sensation. Men- 
tal abstraction and sleep are here seen to be analogous. In 
both, attention is riveted upon a pleasurable experience. 
" God bless the man that first invented sleep," is an expression 
acknowledging the pleasure it affords. Awakened often, an 
unsatisfied sleepiness is always present. The intensity of 
slumber is directly proportioned to its degree, just as the 
intensity of abstraction is proportional to the mind's interest 
in the topic contemplated. Waking abstraction allows 
many elements to enter, so that it is much less perfect than 
that condition of sleep where a single feeling sways. Coma 
has a feeling peculiar to itself, and the persistence of this 
feeling, if attention is turned upon it, is the persistence of 
the faint. Soldiers in the excitement of battle forget 
serious wounds, but as soon as attention is turned upon them 
they faint. Consciousness in each of these cases alters its 
state, becoming what might be called sub- or infra-conscious- 
ness. The knowledge acquired in such a state would be 
such as that which Mr. T. Davidson has called anoetic* It 
is an awareness of which we are not fully aware until we 
have another kind of feeling with which to contrast it. 

The physiologist has found in the amoeba the solution of 
all the problems of his science, since that lowly organism, 
like a white blood corpuscle, contains in the simplest form 
every property of all the higher organic tissues, f Nerves 
and muscles, bones and ligaments, are composed of cells, 
each of which through generations of differentiation has 
heightened some one of that creature's qualities in itself, t 
Bodily development became possible through a division of 



* Mind, Vol. 7, p. 505. 

t Reichert's Foster's Physiolgy, p. 14-16. % Ibid, pp. 18-22. 



184 The Evolution of Mind. 

labor among them, with a consequent exaggeration of some 
amoeboid power in one set, and another in another. No new 
qualities were added. It would be contrary to the simplest 
implications of the. doctrine of evolution to deny a psycho- 
logical parallelism to this physiological fact, wherever and 
whenever the first traces of mind can be seen. For a few 
years past there has been a strong tendency among some 
evolutionists to look upon consciousness as an unnecessary 
accompaniment of automatons like men and animals.* It 
does not seem to strike such reasoners that the fact of its 
slow selective improvement proves its utility. f Reflex ac- 
tion is their universal solvent of all physiological difficulties, 
but they seldom pause to inquire as to what reflex action 
itself may be. In the simplest forms of life facts appear 
that transcend all purely mechanical explanations. Machines 
make neither judgments nor choices. An amoeba in search 
of food pursues no haphazard methods, but makes most care- 
ful selections of the kind it wants. It will send out its 
pseudopodia, catch, swallow and digest a struggling infuso- 
rium t or other nutritious game; but a mere touch of a grain 
of sand satisfies it as to its character, when it thrusts it 
from it in a way that plainly says, " That's not good." § 
Oxygen-consuming bacteria will cluster around grains of 
chlorophyll if exposed to direct sunlight, but pay no atten- 
tion to them in the shade or darkness. They know when 
the oxygen is being given off. Engelmann is able to detect 
the presence of the trillionth part of a milligram of oxygen 
by the behavior of bacteria. || Infusoria guide themselves 
in hunting their food with apparently as much precision as 
fish. They avoid obstacles, and sometimes undertake to 
move them out of the way. They carefully examine float- 
ing particles to determine their edibility. They reject the 
innutritious, and take the nutritious. IT Hunter-ciliates, 
after destroying their prey, search right and left in every 
direction for it. After hunting some time, if they fail to 
find the shattered victim, a new race is begun for other 
pabulum.** Didinium will attack Paramcecium aurelia, but 
not Paramcecium bursaria, thus showing a knowledge of the 
distinction of species, ft Troops of Bodo-caudatus will attack 
aniraalculse many times their own size. A Colpod thus at- 

*Pop. Sci. Mon., Vol. 5, pp. 722-734 (Huxley). 

t Mind, Vol. 4, pp. 3-6 (James). t Pop. Sci. Mon., Vol. 6, p. 758. 

§ McCorniack's Binet's Psychic Life of Micro-Organisms, p. 41. 

f|Op. Cit.,pp. 32, 33. IT Ibid, p. 46. **Ibid, p. 48. tt Ibid, p. 53. 



The Evolution of Mind. 185 

tacked looks like a horse surrounded by a pack of hungry 
wolves.* These facts teach us that the psychic life of even 
monocellular micro-organisms is. exceedingly complex, and 
that we must go lower still to discover the dawn of aware- 
ness. As Haeekel in speaking of Bathybius said : " Life is 
not a result of organization, but vice versa," 'f so these facts 
evidently teach that mind is not the result of a nervous 
system, but vice versa. Mr. Spencer's illustration of the 
evolution of the Social organism,! points out in most em- 
phatic terms the serious character of the blunder made by 
Professor Romanes in handling the subject of the Evohition 
of Mind.§ His chart purports to give the exact point on 
the ascending scale, where the various mental faculties ap- 
pear. Memory he first discovers among the Echinoderms ; 
surprise, fear and the primary instincts among Annelids 
and insect-larvae ; the secondary instincts among spiders and 
the like. Using his test of choice as evidence of psychosis, 
the verdict is against his conclusions. Infusoria flee from 
danger, display fear and exert choice. As a savage com- 
ports himself more rationally toward his environing friends 
and foes than many nations do toward other nations, it is 
not to be wondered at that single-celled beings are more in- 
telligent than those myriad-celled ones in whom adjust- 
ments of the composing units have not become perfected. 
To the latter, too, a new universe is being opened up, and 
its successive steps of organization are adaptations to the 
same. The forces which we have resolved into color and 
sound, taste and odor, form and structure, harmony and 
discord, land and water, sky and air, day and night, sum- 
mer and winter, etc., are all a confused, undifferentiated 
jumble of energies playing on the surface of an amoeba, 
and but little if anything more to a jelly fish. It is the 
resolution of this confusion that constitutes the evolution of 
mind in polycellular creatures. Prof. Win. James says : 
" The world we feel and live in will be that which our an- 
cestors and we, by slowly cumulative strokes of choice, have 
extricated out of this, as the sculptor extracts his statue by 
simply rejecting the other portions of the stone. Other 
sculptors, other statues from the same stone ! Other minds, 
other worlds from the same chaos ! Goethe's world is but 



* Ibid, p. 60. 

t Pop. Sci. Mon., Vol. 11, p. 652. 

t Illustrations of Universal Progress, 384-428 (1873). 

§ Mental Evolution in Animals, D. Appleton & Co. 



186 The Evolution of Mind. 

one in a million alike embedded, alike real to those who may 
abstract them. Some such other worlds may exist in the 
consciousness of ant, crab and cuttle-fish."* To awake to 
a realization of the world as we know it, the evolution of 
our organs of special sense became necessary, and paripassu 
therewith, our nervous system. Effects always succeed 
causes. Our organs are all effects, and consciousness in some 
form the necessary antecedent. That eyes were made for 
seeing and not seeing for eyes, seems to be the only rational 
conclusion for an evolutionist to reach. It is easy to picture 
to ourselves a God making an eye and then putting a soul 
behind it to see through it. It is not possible to picture evo- 
lution doing the same thing. An eye represents millions 
of selections utterly useless and even injurious to a non- 
seeing being. The fact that these accumulations have oc- 
curred, is itself proof of a seeing power preceding eyes. 
Natural selection does not operate by accumulating useless- 
and injurious things. If there was, from the very start r 
something present capable of seeing, every little change 
aiding it in this, would become a benefit to the whole or- 
ganism. What is true of the eye is equally true of the 
ear and the organs of taste and smell. The very first step 
taken toward any of these, could only have been preserved 
because it answered the requirements of a pre-existing con- 
sciousness.! The fortuitous production of things so perfect 
is not for a moment to be considered. They satisfy a de- 
mand that preceded them. Within the eyeless, earless, 
noseless, mouthless protoplasm, existed that which was psy- 
chically capable of obeying the law of evolution by changing 
from indefiniteness to definiteness, from incoherence to co- 
herence, from homogeneity to heterogeneity, t The jumble 
of physical forces played upon it, and produced within it a 
chaos of impressions to which no definite attention was ap- 
plied. Slowly, changes occurred, with ever increasing per- 
fection, that brought out a distinction between light-waves 
and sound-waves, between tastes and odors, between heat 
and cold. Corresponding to the material integration into 
a nervous system, was a psychic integration into an 
ego ; and answering to the dissemination of motion was 
the disappearance of conflicting tendencies of cells. Thus- 



*Mind, Vol. 4, p. 14. 

t Vide Prof. Cope on Catagenesis, in American Naturalist, Vol. 18, p. 972. 

t Spencer's First Principles of Philosophy, pp. 394-396 (1873). 



The Evolution of Mind. 187 

we perceive a perfect parallelism between the production of 
the subjective and objective world. No such parallelism, 
however, can be discovered by those who believe that con- 
sciousness was out of the succession at any point. The ar- 
rangements of our cells, the tortuous anastamoses of our 
veins and capillaries, the striatum of our muscles, the reticu- 
lation of our connective tissue, the mechanism of our bones, 
the arborescence of our nerves, and the whole grand miracle 
of our organic complexity, is but a wonderful history of the 
•development of higher and higher psychic power. Millions 
of vibrations may resound within this fretted network, but 
only the grand resultant is perceived as a feeling of well- 
being. A break in the harmony attracts attention by dis- 
comfort, and many breaks constitute the feelings of disease. 
As the driver of a many -horsed stage holds lines to every 
horse by which to guide them, so the central will appears 
to be connected with every part of the body, psychically as 
well as physically.* This coenaesthesis constitutes the back- 
ground of the minds of higher animals, while the organs 
of special sense provide the data of knowledge. In reach- 
ing up to these possibilities of our intellect, a long chain 
of pains and pleasures were the guiding impulses. Comfort 
is the state forever sought by every creature. A condition 
of comfort or pleasure is the concomitant of evolution, while 
one of discomfort or pain means dissolution.! We cannot 
conceive of organized existence under conditions other than 
these. To like that which injures the system is to journey 
toward dissolution. All injurious external relations are to 
organized beings more or less painful. The mind is there- 
fore incessantly seeking to adjust the body in a way that 
will increase its pleasure or diminish its pain. The more per- 
fect this adjustment the more perfect the life of the creature. % 
In watching the movements of an animal, we judge its place 
as high or low on the mental scale in proportion to its power 
of adaptation to its environment. We can as yet only in 
the roughest fashion make any classification in comparative 
psychology, although the thing at first glance seems simple. 
The fact is, we know very little about how speechless ani- 
mals feel or think. Many of them seem to possess powers 
of adjustment in special directions that far exceed our own. 



*Luy's Brain and its Functions, pp. 91-101 (Int. Sci. Ser.) 
t Spencer's Psychology, Vol. 1, pp. 272-288. 
+ Spencer's Biology, Vol. 1, pp. 82-93. 



188 The Evolution of Mind. 

Examples are found in the dog's power of smell, the eagle's 
power of sight, the ant's power of tunneling and the ability 
of domestic animals to find their way back to their old haunts 
by a direct route hundreds of miles long and that is entirely 
unknown to them.* A fly surely cannot, with its compound 
eyes, see the world as we do.t Its psychic method of ad- 
justing bodily movements to its environment cannot be like 
ours. However diverse its mental make, or that of any 
other creature below us may be, we certainly do observe a 
serial character within the grand total. The differentiation 
of organs of sense from simple surface feeling seems to be 
a fair inference from observed facts. In the lowest forms 
we find the sense of touch their only visible avenue of 
knowledge. In the higher ones we find fully developed 
special senses. Between these extremes we find many de- 
grees. The lowest can know but little beyond themselves. 
The highest can study the myriads of stars that dot space, 
as to their physical and chemical conditions. There are 
many degrees between. The sphere of known space expands 
with the development of the mind and organs of sense. % 
Observation likewise reveals the fact that mental progress 
in the knowledge of time continually adds itself to the 
knowledge of space. While men of high intelligence are 
provident and careful, looking out for all possible future 
contingencies that might bring them suffering, the less in- 
telligent show less such forethoughts The farther down 
the scale we travel, the less and less this mental trait is re- 
vealed. Prevision is a constantly developing power. The 
prophets of to-day are greater than those of the past. With 
the advance of science, our power of prediction increases, 
and we become enabled to look farther and farther back into 
the past. With this development in the knowledge of time 
and space, goes a development in the discovery of differences 
between things that at first look the same. || This growth 
in specialty of mental correspondence with the world with- 
out, lies at the very base of knowledge. Every fact in 
every field of thought is but an experience, labeled with a 
name to distinguish it from all other experiences from which 
it differs. IF It is evident that the totality of experiences in 



*Mind, Vol. 5, p. 581. t Hogg's The Microscope, p. 583. 

X Spencer's Psychology, Vol. 1, p. 31S. 

§Ribot's English Psychology, pp. 162, 1G3 (Spencer). 

|| Spencer's Psychology, VoT.l, pp. 329-"" 

"jfFisfce's Cosmic Philosophy, pp. 3-21. 



-341. 



The Evolution of Mind. 189 

qualities and kinds must become greater and greater with 
the progress of the senses. Eyeless animals cannot distin- 
guish between red, green and violet. No such experiences 
are ever known to them. Reasoning and experimenting 
beings extend this correspondence to an enormous exteut. 
With the accumulation of facts of difference, are soon ob- 
served facts of resemblance among things otherwise very 
much unlike. The discovery of these establishes new 
groups of mental relations answering to such outer condi- 
tions.* From the simple, we go on to the complex. The 
generalizations of science transcend the mental power of 
the rustic in their broadness, and he has but little concep- 
tion even of their number. His well founded reasons for 
certain of his acts and beliefs would seriously puzzle a 
savage, while the thoughts and deeds of the latter would be 
equally mysterious to a chimpanzee. The subsuming of 
isolated facts into higher and higher classes has been going 
on from the amoeba to man. The highest and last great 
generalization, that of evolution itself, is but the latest 
stone laid on the Avails of a temple whose foundation was 
laid by the lowest possible efforts in the generalization of 
brutes. To consider therefore that our mental powers were 
born in a cradle of darkness and sorrow, nurtured amid the 
cruel throes of agony, f and that step by step has been one 
continuous series of triumphant gains of peace and joy, 
should make us proud of our humble lineage, and prouder 
still of that final goal whither we trend. In the deep, un- 
utterable longings of sanctified hope, one incessant, heart- 
felt prayer has resounded down the ages from the primitive 
amoeba to the civilized man. 'Devotion so continuous de- 
served and has received a large reward. Our Newtons and 
Spencers, Kants and Darwins, Goethes and Shakspeares, 
are but the first fruits of a harvest whose coming bounty 
no husbandman can compute, t There have been no leaps 
along the line, no letting in of new elements. An unbroken 
continuity is everywhere discernible. "The most elevated 
phenomena are the effects of a complication that has come 
out of the simplest elements by insensible degrees. "§ From 
fundamental indivisable awareness, with its memory, feeling 
and will, have come perceptions and conceptions, judgments 
and imaginations, instincts and reasons. These are all but 

* Spencers Psychology, pp. 342-349. 

t Proc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 1883, pp. 44-48. 

t Pop. Sci. Mon., Vol. 7, pp. 61, 62. § Ribot's English Psychology, p. 164. 



190 The Evolution of Mind. 

artificial subdivisions of a continuously connected whole, 
whose invariable aim is correspondence with the environ- 
ment. Every successive step seeks to fix an exact parallel- 
ism between the order of our mental contents and the order of 
the forces of nature.* When external relations and internal 
conceptions have become perfect correspondences, intelli- 
gence will be at its highest. Life will have become unend- 
ing when adjustments are as perfect as this knowledge. In 
studying this parallelism between the contents of the mind 
and its environment, we should not forget that the inner is 
only symbolic of the outer. It has been wisely said that 
" We are fearfully and wonderfully made." The grotesque 
notions of our fathers and the fantasies of the savage are 
far short of the great reality. But few grasp what the 
mind does. They never pause to consider that all that is 
grand in so-called objective nature is but states of their own 
consciousness.! The actual universe without is unknow- 
able. J Knowing is the mind's special function, and all we 
know is in, and not out of it.§ Within its sacred precincts 
is focalized the dazzling brilliance of the glittering dome of 
space, the weird loveliness of the mountain landscape, the 
verdant flower-bespangled prairie, and the vast, surging 
waters of the ocean. The physicist resolves the outer phase 
of the correspondence into motions, and the psychologist 
the inner one to feelings. In the attempt at making such 
a resolution, however, a vast amount of mental confusion 
exists. We speak of the brain as the organ of the mind, 
and yet very few have any definite idea as to what they 
mean by this. The eye is the organ of sight, yet the eye 
is not the seer. || The ear is the organ of hearing, yet it is 
not the hearer. The brain is the organ of thought, yet 
there are many facts that go to show that the whole brain 
cannot be the thinker. The great bulk of that organ (or 
rather combination of organs) appears to be related to the 
thinking process much as the eye is to the seeing one. The 
comparison of symptoms in the living with post-movtem- 
found lesions of the brain, and the careful experiments upon 
animals by Ferrier,H McKendrick,** Goltz,ft Burden-San- 



* Spencer's Psychology, pp. 407^17. 

t Huxley's Critiques and Addresses, pp. 285-317. 

+ Spencer's First Principles, pp. 85-97. 

§ Bernstein's Five Senses, p. 162. || Ibid, p. 3. 

II Ferrier's Functions of the Brain, pp. 280-318. 

** Trail's Roy. Soc. Edin., 1873, article on Exper. on Brains of Pigeons. 

tt Ferrier's Functions, p. 258. 



The Evolution, of Hind, 191 

derson,* and many others, have fixed definitely some func- 
tional areas. t When neurologists can tell positively from a 
patient's symptoms the location of a cerebral abscess, and 
remove the same with a minimum of injury, what greater 
evidence can we ask of the truth of some of their discov- 
eries ? A large part of the brain unfortunately still remains 
"a dark continent." Certain regions preside over sensa- 
tion, t and certain others over motion. § No center of dis- 
tinct consciousness has been fixed upon. If such a place 
exists, the area would seem to be exceedingly small, if we 
may be allowed to draw inferences from introspective obser- 
vation. At any one moment the knowledge immediately 
under attention is exceedingly minute, as compared with 
the large amount stored away by retention. We can 
only know a very few things at a time. If the area of 
mental synthesis is as small in proportion to the total brain- 
mass as the amount of knowledge we can at once be con- 
scious of is to the total knowledge stored up for use, then 
it is very small indeed. That consciousness is not all over 
the brain at once is seen in the fact that we are not always 
aware of everything we ever knew or now can know by in- 
trospection. If that was the case, forgetting would be im- 
possible in a brain free from lesions. Unconscious cerebra- 
tion could not be possible. Experience daily indicates to 
us that the brain is like a book. Consciousness looks into it 
at various points, reading its contents, or else currents come 
from such points to be translated into knowledge at some 
center of synthesis. || All we know of evolution emphasizes 
the fact of division of labor and the production of higher 
and higher centers of control over that below. Anatomy 
exhibits an organic arrangement that physiology has thus 
interpreted as far as it has gone. That a center of atten- 
tion should exist where all sensational elements could be 
put together, would seem to be but a fair inference. Ferrier 
places such a center for man in the frontal lobes. H Atten- 
tion is the uniting link of motor and sensory activity, and 
takes part in every mental act however high or low it may 
be. It is a form of will ; and the frontal lobes may only 
be related to it in the production of mental work as the 



* Calderwood's Relations of Mind and Brain, p. 105. 

-f Luy's Brain and its Functions, pp. 39-41. 

+ Ferrier's Functions, pp. 180-188. § Ibid., pp. 226-256. 

|| Morrison, Relations of Mind and Matter, in Amer. Nat., Vol. 19, p. 853. 

i Ferrier's Functions, pp. 316-318. 



1 92 The Evolution of Mind. 

muscles are in physical work. As a man's power to execute 
the decrees of his will on brute nature varies with his mus- 
cular power, so does his power to concentrate his attention, 
and think, vary in proportion to the size of his frontal lobes. 
We found elsewhere how the mind obeyed the law of evo- 
lution by increasing its correspondence with objective facts 
in time, in space, in heterogenity, in speciality and in gen- 
erality. Here we discover how it intensifies its activity and 
reaches toward more and more rapid strides in all these 
directions by the growth of the power of attention. 

At the very base of its career this power must have been 
present. As Professor Cope has said, " Physical and men- 
tal development depend on the will."* To know, requires 
prolonged experience. f In the rushing stream of Time, 
what we call Now is but aa imaginary line ending the past 
and verging on the future. To know, includes the past. 
The absolute present without it is nothing. To embrace 
the past in knowledge is to remember, but it is also to use 
attention. Given attention and retained experiences, and 
we have awareness or consciousness. It may be the lowest 
type of consciousness, known to us as simple feeling. Will, 
memory and feeling are thus seen to constitute the indivisi- 
ble psychic trinity. Matter has a similar trinity in its 
length, breadth and depth. The evolution of all material 
forms came by adding atom to atom in three dimensions. 
The evolution of mentality came by somehow making it 
possible to expand its three dimensions of feeling, memory 
or intellect, and will. J How the first of the three grew 
into its heterogeneity of color and sound, taste and smell, 
heat and cold, is an unsolvable problem. We know that 
the difference between the objective causes of yellow and 
red is speed of vibration. § We do not and probably never 
will know how the sensation red changes into the sensation 
green. The same is true of all other sensations. No theory 
can be framed that will enable us to assimilate them. We 
may yet by successive analyses discover the psychic steps 
through which we reached up from the lower to the higher, 
but farther than this we cannot hope to travel. 

That a distinct unity of composition exists between all 
our mental states is the positive implication of evolution. 

* American Naturalist, Vol. 21, p. 1128. 
t Ribot's Diseases of Memory, p. 34. 
% Bain's Mind and Body, pp. 43, 44. 
§ Lomell's Nature of Light, p. 226. 



The Evolution of Mind. 193 

Nothing is or can be known except resemblances and differ- 
ences. They constitute the totality of knowledge in savan, 
savage, child, beast and insect, so far as can be discovered.* 
As the numbers, forms and arrangements of the molecules 
make all the differences between crystals, so the numbers, 
forms and arrangements of like and unlike experiences 
seem to make the differences between minds. These are 
all successively grouped in a way that causes psychic and 
physical relations to reach toward perfect correspondence.! 
All the separate facts in each individual fuse into a common 
whole, constituting the ego as it exists at any moment. 
That the substance of such facts is the brain-structure, 
there can be little cause for doubt ; and that they are evoked 
as required, by streams of nerve-energy, appears to be 
equally clear. It therefore seems strange that immediate 
acts of consciousness are limited in the manner we find 
them to be. The whole brain no doubt takes part in 
thought, as the whole body does in feeling ; but it is evi- 
dently in a mediate rather than an immediate manner. Its 
separate impressions somewhere fuse into the one persist- 
ent feeling of self. While the energy evoking the stream 
of consciousness flows from the whole brain (and indeed 
from the whole nervous system), the substance that is thus 
made conscious is some highly differentiated section of that 
organ. Viewed in this manner, a reconciliation is observed 
between the modern doctrine of reflex action of Carpenter, 
Maudsley, etc.,$ and Lewes' belief § that the spinal cord is 
also conscious. It is quite certain that in spinal reflexes 
and in unconscious cerebration we take no part that we are 
aware of. It seems clearly proven that such acts display 
the signs we are accustomed to interpret as meaning motion,, 
will, feeling, teachability, etc. 

As recent researches seem to show consciousness among 
monocellular creatures, it would seem to be a fair inference 
to believe that polycellular ones by differentiation from 
these should have many centers with distinct autonomies. 
Lewes makes the whole nervous system a single sensorium 
commune. \\ Maudsley makes the cerebrum the sole center 
of sensation. If If we agree with the latter regarding the 



* Ribot's English Psychology, p. 175. 

t Ribot's English Psychology, p. 189. 

% Maudsley's Physiology of Mind, pp. 136-182. 

§ Lewes' Physical Basis of Mind, pp. 509-549. || Ibid, p. 556, § 94. 

f Maudsley's Physiology of Mind, pp. 244, 245. 



1 94 The Evolution of Mind. 

seat of our consciousness, we can still believe "with the 
former that the spine is also conscious. As the conscious- 
ness of a superior officer is distinct from that of his sol- 
diers, it certainly does not follow that the suspension of 
his consciousness is the suspension of theirs. Thus viewed, 
reflex action is the outer aspect of some form of psychosis. 
Instinct and reason, in evolving therefrom, made no breach 
of continuity. Viewed in any other light, the development 
hypothesis is discredited. The present can only be a re- 
arrangement of the past. Each step of progress is but a 
patting together of pre-existing elements of the same kind. 
This is seen in the production of our bodies. We are, in 
the light of biology, but a synthesis of the properties of 
protoplasm. An amoeba can in an imperfect and small way 
perform every function of our bodies. Every new inven- 
tion is but a putting together of pre-existing forms. Every 
new idea is a synthesis of old ones. The so-called discov- 
ery of truth is a growth of truth. The mind is incessantly 
constrained by pain and attracted by comfort into cor- 
respondence with its environment. It cannot reach the 
higher adjustments but through the lower ones. It never 
reaches perfect adjustment nor perfect truth; neither is it 
ever given over to total error. All its errors are partial 
truths, and all its truths partial errors.* The new truth of 
the future is the synthesis of the partial truths of many 
errors of the past. Reconciliation is progress. Experi- 
ences which give rise to narrow views are in time reinter- 
preted in the light of other experiences, and an expansion 
of the horizon of thought occurs. The growth is not from 
total error to perfect truth, but from a maximum to a min- 
imum of error, and from a minimum to a maximum of truth. 
In morality the same condition obtains. Xo creature, 
however low, is absolutely selfish, and none, however high, 
absolutely unselfish. f Unselfishness is itself but trans- 
formed selfishness. We are kind and good to others be- 
cause it is a greater pleasure to us to be so than it would 
be to pursue a course of selfishness. We relieve suffering 
and give charity because in doing so we free ourselves from 
sympathetic pain.$ In the sufferings of the past came our 
capacity for joy, in the struggles of the past our capacity 



* Spencer's First Principles, p. 3 (1873). 
t Spencer's Study of Sociology, p. 184. 
t Spencer's Recent Discussions, pp. 26, 27 (1873). 



The Evolution of Mind. 195 

to think. The pain and agony endured by our progenitors 
has attuned our systems to a thrill of pain at the sight of 
another's sufferings. On seeing a fellow-being suffer we 
mentally picture ourselves in the same state. This evokes 
a quiver of pain in us that is an incessant impulse teaching 
mercy and leniency. To be cruel is to punish ourselves. 
As every step of progress is taken toward greater definite- 
ness, this trait is likely to be a growing one, keeping pace 
with advancing civilization. Our minds will become keener 
in appreciating the suffering of our fellows.* This will 
heighten our pain at another's agony, and increase our joy 
when able to relieve the same. Nature thus seems bound 
to lay upon us her lash for wrong-doing until the race is 
willing to clasp hands as a common brotherhood. Such is 
the Gospel according to Evolution. The sense of right and 
wrong as mental traits is seen to exist in domestic animals, 
but with nothing like the definiteness nor heterogeneity it 
has in ourselves. The more intelligent the being, the more 
numerous the shades of wrong-doing that can be perceived. 
Our morality transcends that of the savage, as his in turn 
transcends that of the brute. t The evolution of Mind being, 
as before pointed out, an increase in correspondence between 
itself and the universe around it, the ethical aspect thereof 
would seem to be the coming one for future adjustments. 
At the very basis of known mental life, every act seeks to 
avoid pain and increase comfort, t Each new mental power 
is a help in this direction. 

On ascending above simple physical life to the intellectu- 
al, we perceive everything conspiring for the same common 
aim. Life is only worth living when it gives more pleasure 
than pain. The growth of intellect enables us to avoid 
many forms of pain, and the synthesis of pleasurable feel- 
ings of many kinds heightens joy. The highest form of 
such synthetic products is love. The elemental form of 
love appears in every pleasure of every kind, but its high- 
est manifestation is altruistic. When intellect has become 
fully wedded to unselfish love, the ideal man will have ap- 
peared^ Then happiness will be at its maximum, and the 
soul-felt desires of millions of generations will have been 
heard as prayers and answered as facts. Love is the high- 

* Spencer's Data of Ethics, p. 249 (1880). 

t Fiske's Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. 2, p. 350. 

t Spencer's Psychology, Vol. 1, p. 284, § 127 (1872). 

§ Spencer's Data of Ethios, p. 149 (1880). 



196 The Evolution of Mind. 

est manifestation of mental life. The mind throughout its 
whole developmental career has been reaching toward it 
and longing for it. All progress is and always has been in 
its direction. The gentle mother of all sings to us 'its 
lullaby, and our nervous systems are steadily being attuned 
to the refrain. 

The following apostrophe was written many years ago, 
but has not before been published. It accords with the 
line of thought which properly terminates my discussion 
of this topic. 

Thrill on, O mystic neural threads ! 

Your sympathetic pulse is heaven 
When wave with wave enraptured weds 

And hearts attractive bonds are given. 

Attuned to God's divinest notes, 

Yon stars such symphonies are sounding ; 

And atom unto atom quotes 

This rhythmic cadence when rebounding. 

Your quivering structures tell of love, — 
The highest, purest, grandest motion ; 

Your psychic transports soar above 
Into the great supernal ocean. 

Yes, throb in unison with all, 

To form a perfect diapason, 
That echoing concords may recall 

Thy tender, sanctified sensation. 



The Evolution of Mind. 197 



ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 

De. Lewis G. Janes : — 

By its careful attention this audience has manifested deep inter- 
est in Dr. Eccles' essay. As a treatment of the psychological as- 
pects of the subject the paper seems to me to be one of an exceed- 
ingly high order, manifesting careful and accurate study and able 
and independent thought. I confess, however, to a certain meas- 
ure of disappointment in that the lecturer has devoted so much 
time to clearing the way, and has not indicated in greater detail 
the successive steps in mental evolution, from monera to man. 
There were times during the delivery of the essay when it ap- 
peared to me that the Doctor's science and his metaphysics were 
engaged in a "struggle for existence," the outcome of which 
seemed a little dubious. I find myself wholly in agreement, how- 
ever, with what I conceive to be his fundamental position. Mat- 
ter and Mind are, as Goethe affirmed, "eternal double-ingredients 
of the universe." The Reality manifested in all phenomena must 
be regarded as a double-faced unity, revealing itself as matter to 
the senses, as mind in the operations of thought. I cannot quite 
accept the speaker's technical terminology, which appeared to me 
to confound consciousness with mind. I regard it, however, as 
only a phase or condition of mind, in which it is directly related 
to a somewhat external to itself. Consciousness, Dr. Eccles as- 
sumes, is not absent in coma, diverted attention, or profound 
sleep : it is merely concentrated updn a single dominant thought. 
I do not think that he will find the weight of scientific authority 
to support this view. How will he account for the condition fre- 
quently resulting from fracture of the skull, when consciousness 
is apparently extinguished by the pressure of the bone upon the 
brain ? A person in this state could not be aroused by repeated 
calling, as in the instances the speaker has adduced. Only one 
thing could restore consciousness — a surgical operation relieving 
the pressure. In such cases consciousness appears to "pick up 
its ravelled threads" at the exact point where it was interrupted 
by the injury. No one supposes, however, that the mind has been 
destroyed and re-created. Mill has defined matter as " the perma- 
nent possibility of sensation." In like manner I would define 
Mind as " the permanent possibility of consciousness." Every act 



198 The Evolution of Mind. 

of consciousness is subjecto-objective — a reflection of Self upon 
Not-self ; or, in self-consciousness, it involves a differentiation of 
Self from Not-self. In its lowest, undifferentiated form, con- 
sciousness is mere sentience ; it apprehends the external world 
through the primitive undifferentiated sense of feeling.* Its in- 
ferences are crude and misleading on account of the limitations of 
its scope — though the knowledge which it actually gives is true 
knowledge. The evolution of mind proceeds pari-passu with that 
of the organism, by interaction with environing conditions. As 
higher stages in the evolution of life are reached, the revelations of 
the simpler forms of consciousness are not contradicted ; they are 
simply added to, and thus the crude inferences of the simpler con- 
sciousness are corrected. The creation of either mind or matter 
is inconceivable from the standpoint of Evolution. All science 
assumes a realistic philosophical foundation. All knowledge is 
therefore real knowledge of a real universe ; it is real knowledge, 
though not complete knowledge — a knowledge of real relations 
in external phenomena, as really related in and to the individual 
consciousness. 

Peofessob Almost G. Merwin : — 

While interested in the lecture, I was, in a measure, disappoint- 
ed. I had hoped to hear how the more complex states of con- 
sciousness grew out of the simpler, as manifested in the lower 
organisms — how the five senses, and a knowledge of the means 
by which we communicate with the outer world, were developed. 
Men have tried to change the vibrations causing sound into vibra- 
tions causing taste. What is the common substratum of mental 
substance underlying these different sense-perceptions ? In many 
things I agree with the lecturer, but it seems to me — though I 
suppose it was unavoidable — that he was largely speculative in 
his theories and conclusions. 

Me. Nelson J, Gates : — 

I had hoped that Dr. Eccles would give us more ideas with ref- 
erence to the evolution of mind from the individual standpoint. 
Beginning with the single nerve-cell there is a development by 
the multiplication of cells. The steps in mental development have 
proceeded along corresponding lines, and must have been preced- 
ed or followed by a physical development. Will Dr. Eccles tell us 

* I do not mean, of course, our specialized sense of touch, which requires a 
highly developed nerve-system. Of the special senses there is considerable ev- 
idence that sight was the' first in order of evolution. Vide Binet, "The Psychic 
Life of Micro-Organisms." 



The Evolution of Mind. 199 

which, or if they are co-incident ? It appears to me that mind did 
not precede physical development, as the lecturer has assumed, 
but that mind and matter have evolved in perfect unison — they 
are co-incident. They are one in ultimate nature and principle, 
and cannot be separated. We have to think of matter in terms of 
mind, and of mind in terms of matter. But I think Dr. Eccles 
assumed the idealistic position. That field had best be given over 
to metaphysicians — the professors of mental gymnastics. 

The theory of evolution is one of the greatest ever offered to 
the human mind. Everything has existed potentially in the orig- 
inal material of the universe. There is no room for miracle in 
the passage from inorganic to organic matter. Phenomena are 
the result of pre-existing phenomena. It seems to me that we 
are compelled to believe that all force, and all physical and men- 
tal phenomena, are manifestations of one material substance. 

Mk. O. F. Burton : — 

The lecture of Dr. Eccles is one of the most masterly presenta- 
tions of the subject I have ever listened to. I must disagree with 
Spencer's assertion that mind is unknowable. Millions^ believe 
they know mind sufficiently to come to a knowledge of the great ' ,'\ 
Mind — God. I believe that magnetism is the greatest power in 
the universe. Its action on the brain produces 1he^en3at,ipns' of ,> 
taste, smell, etc. 

De. Eccles : — , o 3 V y 3 : 

Beginning with the last speaker, let me say that Herbert Sp^n-'. '■>' '■ 
cer has not denied that mind is knowable, but that, oh the con- 
trary, he has gone to great trouble to show that both mind and 
matter are knowable. He has written two large volumes — "The 
Principles of Psychology" — to show that mind is knowable, and 
to explain what is known concerning it. Professor Merwin is not 
satisfied because I do not explain the unknowable. He wants me 
to explain how sensation is transmuted into consciousness. That 
is the unknowable. It cannot be explained. Our data are not yet 
sufficient to make a dissertation along the line suggested by Mr. 
Gates either profitable or interesting. That is a work that must 
be left to future investigators. I did not assume the priority of 
mind to matter, as Mr. Gates inferred, but merely the priority of 
mental activity to functional and structural development in the 
organism — an entirely different thing. As to Dr. Janes' remarks 
about the illustration of the boy and his falling into unconscious- 
ness, my contention is that consciousness is still there, but, as I 



200 The Evolution of Mind, 

have said, the attention is so powerfully attracted to the seat of 
pain that it cannot be withdrawn. I admit, however, that as far 
as the facts are concerned, they are explainable from either point 
of view. As to taking a lesson from the ants or any of the lower 
animals on this subject, it is impossible to show the organization 
of mind among them : we can only show that in them as in man 
mind is adapted to its environment. Therefore the method which 
I adopted seems to be the only one practicable in the presentation 
of this topic. 



c <c < c 



EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY 



BY 
JAMES A. SKILTON, 



COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED 

IN CONNECTION WITH ESSAY IX. 

Spencers's Principles of Sociology, Descriptive Sociology, and 
Social Statics; Tylor's Early History of Mankind; Coulange's 
Ancient City ; Maine's Ancient Law, and Early Law and Customs; 
Keary's Dawn of History ; Force's Prehistoric Man; Lubbock's 
Primitive Condition of Man, and Origin of Civilization ; Clodd's 
Childhood of the World; Bagehot's Physics and Politics ; Morris's 
The Aryan Pace : Its Origin and Achievements ; James Cotter Mor- 
ison's The Service of Man. 



EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY. 



Either prospectively or immediately, the central figure 
in each one of the topics of the essays of this course upon 
Evolution is Man ; and in its full scope, in the topic of this 
evening, the central figure is Associated Man, in process of 
evolution as such, in the presence and under the influence 
of earlier and rudimentary forms or types of societary asso- 
ciation found in vegetal and animal life generally. 

The largeness, complexity, and, in its early stages and 
history, the obscurity of the subject, therefore become evi- 
dent at a glance. The experience of the Master himself 
illustrates the difficulties to be met with in its treatment. 
Whether or not it be true, as we suspect, that Mr. Spencer 
found in it the initial impulses that led to the working out 
of his system of philosophy, it is evident that all his pre- 
viously written books lead naturally and inevitably up to 
those he has written on the subject of Sociology. And yet 
on reaching that branch of his system, in due course, he 
found himself practically forced to prepare a special and 
preliminary work on the "study" of it, devoted substan- 
tially to an extended examination and explanation of the 
almost insurmountable obstacles and hindrances to be met 
with in presenting and in understanding it. 

Comprehensively, at the outset, he describes the entire 
objective and subjective worlds as fairly barricaded with 
them; and subsequently, descending to particulars, he pre- 
sents and describes, through some hundreds of pages, like 
so many specimen grains of sand taken from an ocean beach, 
samples of " bias," with which the human mind is infested, 
such as the educational, the patriotic, the class, the politi- 
cal, and finally, worst of all, the theological bias, all of which 
interfere with the proper study and comprehension of the 
subject. He then occupies nearly one hundred additional 
pages in setting forth the " discipline," the " preparation in 
biology " and " psychology " required for the proper study, 

* Copyright, 1889, by The >*ew Ideal Publishing Co. 



204 Evolution of Society. 

ending with a "conclusion," and, in later editions, a "post- 
script" of some forty pages more. And when the end of 
the book is reached, the wonder of it all is, that he did not 
write finis, and drop the subject then and there forever. 
That he did not do so, is one of the many marks of his im- 
perial genius. 

In the preface to Part II, Vol. II, Principles of Sociology,. 
Mr. Spencer says in substance that the full and satisfactory 
treatment of political evolution alone "would require the 
labors of a life," and that he therefore limits himself to 
broad generalization, believing it to be " supremely impor- 
tant and that no one part can be fully understood without 
it." But even he, treating the subject in this manner, has 
only been able to stagger on without going through, or 
completing it, and seems now to have fallen exhausted by 
the wayside, leaving his work in this branch unfinished, and, 
as we fear, never to be finished by him. 

No further excuse need be offered for the various limita- 
tions of this essay. However, let any one sitting down now 
to prepare a sociological essay glance at the bibliography of 
the subject, and he will find that the work already done by 
Mr. Spencer has stimulated scores if not hundreds of able 
thinkers and writers into activity, as well as many others 
whose writings may at least have the effect and merit of 
arousing the attention of some minds that would not other- 
wise be reached and influenced. Certainly any one inter- 
ested in sociology, on looking into the books already on 
library shelves, and noting the yearly procession of them 
on the march to that position of influence, must be greatly 
encouraged by the rapid spread of evolution views in the 
sociological branch of the subject. Whether Evolution has 
yet furnished us with completely satisfactory solutions and 
remedies, or not, it has certainly rendered us a great service 
in disclosing some of the abysses directly under our feet ; 
and particularly by more than warning us that the dark 
ages are not necessarily all behind us. 

Especially in America it has done us a valuable service 
in developing a well-founded and healthy distrust in the 
wisdom of many of the old leaders and systems, and in pre- 
paring us to at least judiciously hope for, if not expect, the 
eventual coming of a better day. Particularly, it has aided 
other helps to knowledge, in assisting the suppression of 
the provincial bombast and self-sufficiency of the Fourth, of 



Evolution of Society. 205 

July orations of the past and the early part of the present 
generation, with many of their implications, and also in 
showing us that our institutions have a solid support in a 
true science of society. 

Many prior attempts had been made, with more or less 
of mingled failure and success, to reduce social chaos to 
order and system. Significantly, the dominant civilization 
of the modern world, and as we hope of the future, is based 
on the teaching found in what is claimed to be a sacred 
book, which opens the history of the world as beginning in 
a state of chaos, out of which the wonderful order and har- 
mony of the celestial spheres were slowly developed under 
the control of a Supreme Power. In the concluding divis- 
ion of the same book, dealing with mankind born into a 
world as the product of this Supreme Power, the highest 
point is reached while dealing with fundamental social 
principles almost exclusively — religious worship being rel- 
egated to the closet, and there dominated by social duty — in 
the appeal of prayer to the same Power, containing the 
words : " Our Father which art in heaven. Thy kingdom 
come. Thy will be done in earth as hi heaven.'''' 

Evolutionary Sociology not only follows the first exam- 
ple so set, by finding its fundamental principles in and 
through a study of the prior celestial chaos and its methods 
of reduction to cosmos, but it also follows at no great re- 
move the remaining parts of that early account of creation 
as it deals with the development of vegetal, animal and 
human life on this globe — substituting only the slow-work- 
ing principle of evolution for the quick-working assumption 
of creation, and reducing all of it to an orderly, scientific 
system ; and it also follows the later inspiration in applying 
the evolutionary principles found at work in the heavens, 
to the reduction of social chaos to beneficent order and 
harmony, insisting always and everywhere on their univer- 
sality and omnipotence, both in the kingdom of heaven and 
in the kingdoms of the earth. 

So doing — and so doing throughout — it is impossible for 
us to believe that the sacred book and the evolution philos- 
ophy can be found in serious conflict ; and we are compelled 
to believe that they will, when properly understood and in- 
terpreted, be found in substantial harmony. 

In the heavens, order arises out of seeming disorder, 
through the necessary development and developmental 



206 Evolution of Society. 

effects of antagonizing forces ; and the order thus produced 
rises in grade, character, or quality, as these antagonisms 
increase in complexity and activity. Distinctive societary 
action, however, first appears in the domain of vegetal life. 
There we find the united and associated action of individu- 
als of the same species resulting in the occupation and pos- 
session by them of large areas of forest and field, to the ex- 
clusion of other species, accompanied by struggle, conflict, 
slaughter, victory and defeat ; all of which are continued 
between individuals of the same species without end. Be- 
tween individuals and associations of different species even 
more severe struggles and conflicts universally prevail ; and 
the tragedies of vegetal life may well be said to be not less 
than those recorded in the histories of the world, or those 
prior tragedies of human life unrecorded in any history. 

Although the lily neither toils nor spins, yet when left 
to itself it is compelled to struggle for existence not only 
with others of its kind, but with other forms of plant-life 
having in their mode of action the principles and methods 
of the thief, the tyrant, and even the murderer. In fact, 
the remorseless struggle for supremacy among plants left 
to themselves, is everywhere evident to the most casual ob- 
server. Note what occurs after a great freshet in the Ohio 
River, when, as the waters subside, a new island is seen to 
have been formed by their action. The sun of the succeed- 
ing summer speedily develops, or aids in developing, num- 
berless seeds and germs of the sycamore tree, scores of 
which peep out into the daylight through the drying crust 
on every square foot of the surface of the new island. Be- 
fore the summer is over it will be discovered that some in- 
dividuals, either by reason of superior vigor inherited by 
the original germ from the parent tree, or of the greater 
richness of the immediate soil in which their lot may have 
been cast, have grown taller than others, and have expanded 
their larger leaves over those of their smaller and weaker 
brethren, thereby excluding them from the privileges of the 
life-giving sun, and appropriating those privileges for their 
own use. Return to the island in after years, and you will 
find that where originally hundreds of thousands of juvenile 
sycamore trees were to be found, there are now left only 
scores of giants, in complete possession, the weaker ones 
having been ruthlessly destroyed in their infancy by the 
arboreal Herods jo\\ see before you. Every laughing 



Evolution of Society. 207 

meadow, even, is crowded with tragedies of plant-life. We 
forgive the survivors, if, indeed, we think of what has oc- 
curred, because we accept the entire absence of a moral 
nature in vegetal life. But on the other hand we also find 
in vegetal life some of the altruistic family virtues accom- 
panying the selfish and egoistic virtues, of which the care 
of offspring and the struggle to secure family survival, even 
at the expense of vitality, as in the higher forms of life, is 
to be noted as forming an important parallel to duty in 
human life. 

What a wonderful presentation it would be, if we had, 
arranged before and around us, the seeds and new germs of 
all vegetal life, so that we could note the ingenious and 
multitudinous devices by which they have been protected, 
as if by a wise and tender care during growth and after, and 
finally distributed in the way most likely to secure survival 
and the perpetuation of their kind. A high degree of vegetal 
societary life and action may be found in a field of wheat lo- 
cated on a rich soil. While each individual plant is engaged 
in the serious business of drawing all possible nourishment 
from the adjoining soil and in lifting its head as high and 
as rapidly as its brethren, so as not to be overshadowed by 
them, each meantime engaged in the important function of 
reproduction, the whole field seems almost inclined to frolic 
as the grain waves to and fro in the sunlight and the pass- 
ing breeze. If the farmer has sown the seeds thickly, each 
plant seems to understand that its duty is to expend its en- 
ergies either on one stalk, or stem, or upon a very few of 
them, the aim of each being to keep at least abreast with 
all others in growth. If, however, the seed has been sparsely 
sown, each individual plant seems to take note of the fact, 
and, particularly where the soil is rich, it stools at the root 
so as to occupy the space, sending up many stalks and pro- 
ducing many heads full of kernels of wheat, all from the 
same root originating in a single seed. In either case there 
is a seeming recognition of associated fellows of its kind 
and an almost intelligent accommodation of itself to its 
societary conditions, in this and in other respects. In all 
such cases of vegetal societary development and prosperity 
there has been great slaughter of vegetal life by the farmer, 
who, putting in the plough, has turned over the sod and 
ruthlessly destroyed the antecedent vegetal life, on the 
decay of which the wheat builds its own prosperity. 



208 Evolution of Society. 

Again, certainly under artificial conditions, but also in a 
state of nature, there is extension of protection to weaker 
brethren — by the shading of those requiring shade, and 
otherwise. Wishing to have a meadow occupied by peren- 
nial grasses exclusively, the farmer sows his timothy, clover, 
or other seed, with the wheat or other grain-seed ; where- 
upon the more hardy and rank-growing grain-stalks shade 
from the killing sun of summer the tender sprouts of timo- 
thy and clover, until — the grain being cut in the late sum- 
mer, or early fall — they spring forward rapidly, and, before 
other plants, or weeds, can make head, timothy or clover is 
in possession, not to be ousted for a term of years. Sub- 
stantially the same action is seen to be taken naturally, 
without the intervention of man, — as where the shade of 
forest trees permits and protects the growth of humbler 
specimens of plant-life beneath their branches. 

But, practically, the whole of the lower plane of individ- 
ual and associated vegetal life is subordinated to the higher 
forms of life found in animals, and to their needs and uses. 
While the capacities of choice and of change in place may 
here and there be hinted at, or suggested, in vegetal life, 
it is not until we reach the level of animal life that we 
find these as predominant characteristics — disregarding 
certain low forms located near the line of transition from 
the vegetal to the animal type. With these capacities we 
find associated more or less rudimentary forms of mind, and 
capacity for expression, intercommunication and language, 
together with dominant selfishness, which in the world of 
society occupies the place and fills the functions of the law 
of gravity in the material world, and out of which all order 
eventually develops. 

In animal life, associated action among individuals of the 
same species tends to increase, in general, as carnivorous 
tendencies diminish ; perhaps we might say, it is caused by 
them, where the weaker ones combine for protection against 
the stronger, — until we reach such animals as the sheep, 
highly peaceful in their nature, living together in flocks, 
and attracting attention as such, as types for the considera- 
tion of human beings in their moral, societary, and even 
religious relations. 

Having come into being under the same laws and admin- 
istration as mankind, it is naturally to be expected that 
prosperity and well-being among men will be accompanied 



Evolution of Society. 209 

by prosperity and well-being in contemporaneous and asso- 
ciated individual and societary vegetal and brute-animal 
life ; and experience confirms the expectation, as well as the 
converse proposition. 

In this connection, it is interesting to observe the differ- 
ence between the wisdom of the early writer or writers of 
the account of creation already referred to, and the modern 
interpreters of it. Thorns and thistles are the direct result 
of imperfect vegetal development ; and they are evidently 
recognized by the former as related to human degradation, 
and to the evil that degradation produces, even in its effects 
upon the ground on which the "fallen" man treads. And 
to one who has noted how serpents disappear before an ad- 
vancing society, and how they reappear in the track of a 
declining society, the connection of the "fall of man" with 
the serpent seems by no means entirely fanciful. 

Everywhere, among all forms of life, associated action 
among individuals of the same species, seems to have for 
its initial motive the principle and function of sex and the 
continuation of the species, with protection and safety as a 
near object, extending later on into various lines and 
methods of improvement, or progress toward an ideal per- 
fection, accompanied from stage to stage, or in gradation, 
by a tendency toward diminished reproductive energy, as pro- 
tection from enemies and prolongation of life are obtained. 
In vegetal life the full blown rose may be taken as a sam- 
ple of that perfection ; the perfection consisting in a gradual 
elimination of the reproductive organs and functions by 
their substitution or translation into the beautiful petalif- 
erous forms that compose its glory. In this stage the re- 
productive function is wanting, and the life of the same 
individual plant is continued and multiplied by the slipping 
process, instituted by the gardener. 

It may be said, in passing, that a similar course or stage 
in the development of human life would be represented by 
an approach toward a condition of individual immortality, 
the ultimate condition being one in which the reproductive 
function would not only be wanting, but would be unneces- 
sary, and in which all the highest possibilities of the human 
mind and soul would be in the most perfect state of efflo- 
rescence, and when man would have become a fit companion 
for the Angels. 

While there may be no immediate call for alarm lest this 



210 Evolution of Society. 

stage should be speedily reached, it may be admitted that 
the conception has for ages made occasional visits to the 
human mind, and is at the present time engaging the atten- 
tion of speculative thinkers and writers, who, following 
substantially the leadings of physiology, intimate that all 
we have to do, in order to secure immortality here on earth, 
is to learn how to perfect the forces and processes of ab- 
sorption and assimilation in the human body, so that they 
shall be equal, and that none of the chemical elements com- 
posing the body shall secure permanent lodgment, as occurs 
in the hardened muscles, ligaments, tissues and brittle 
bones of old age ; whereupon it is claimed that the vital 
force will be competent to run the machinery of life for- 
ever, in perennial youth. 

Whatever the ultimate truth may be in this regard, in 
all the earlier stages or ranks of life the reproductive ten- 
dency is necessarily great, and evidently so for the purpose 
of supplying the waste of life that inevitably occurs, thus 
preventing the extinction of species ; and, in the later and 
higher, the reproductive tendency usually diminishes in 
some proportion to the diminished need, as life becomes 
more safe and mental action with its opportunities is nor- 
mally increased. 

It may be said, here as well as anywhere, that the su- 
preme question in all societary evolution is this question 
of the rate of reproduction. In vegetal life, especially, and 
in brute-animal life as well, in the main, increase in the 
rate and ratio of reproduction is in the line of progress and 
development — certainly so in their earlier stages — since 
the needs of man are thereby the better and more surely 
supplied; as well as waste, and seed and germ necessities 
for continued future use. 

In human life a high degree of reproductive activity 
is necessitated by the destructions and wastes of war, 
disease, poverty, ignorance, crime, and other like causes 
of death and removal, and by and through the inherent 
workings of associated conditions accompanying them. But 
the associated conditions of peace, health, suitable prosper- 
ity, intelligence, and obedience to the laws of life and 
society, through the natural and necessary Avorkings of asso- 
ciated physical and other conditions, result in a diminishing 
rate and ratio of reproduction, and, co-ordinately, in in- 
creased intellectual development, in relief in the strug- 



Evolution of Society. 211 

gle for existence, and in a higher order of societary 
life. 

In view of the fact that the functional activities of sex 
have these important relations to society and its evolu- 
tion, the methods of sexual association at once appear 
to have supreme importance not only, but we may 
instantly more than suspect that the laws of that as- 
sociation have been deeply laid in the very founda- 
tions of things. As to marriage, and the method of thereby 
instituting the human family, for more than one reason the 
public discussion of the subject, like the happy state itself, 
is to be entered upon with great care and deliberation. The 
thorough and public scientific treatment of it certainly may 
not now be either wise or convenient, but the importance 
of the general subject of sex relations compels thought and 
consideration. 

It may therefore, with all necessary boldness, be said, 
that stock-farm principles do not apply among men, — for 
one reason, that an exceedingly fine appearing physical 
constitution may be accompanied by a moral or a mental 
nature so defective as to more than neutralize the physical 
advantages, as compared with a less perfect physical, com- 
bined with a more perfect moral or intellectual nature. In- 
deed, stock-farm practice is beginning to be influenced by 
qualities of character, spirit, docility, courage, and obedience, 
in the selection of breeding animals. And Evolution, if it 
teaches anything, teaches everywhere that, living according 
to the true laws of life, a practically perfect race may be 
developed from, and as descendants of, individuals of the 
lowest order, provided that the higher laws of life are even 
approximately obeyed from generation to generation. 

We were formerly told that only the strong should marry, 
and that the not strong should not marry. But we have 
now practically arrived at a stage where we may say — 
that depends. It should, however, be said, that no society 
that discourages marriage and makes it difficult for those 
to marry who desire to do so, is good society. And the 
same should also be said of that society into which the en- 
trance of a child, or any number of children, is considered 
an intrusion. Evolution at least has no uncertain word to 
say on that subject. In vegetal life, polygamous and pretty 
nearly every other form of married life prevails, and yet we 
hear nothing of marital outbreaks in that direction, and no 



212 Evolution of Society. 

discussions whatever as to whether marriage is a failure. 
If there is marital misery in vegetal social life, the victims 
discreetly keep it to themselves, and do not let it get into 
the newspapers. 

Among animals there is, upwardly, a decided tendency 
to pairing. Birds are recognized as belonging to a very 
high order of life, and they usually not only pair, but have 
their own personal preferences as to individuals with which 
they prefer to pair, with obstinate little wills of their own 
behind them. To one tired of studying the confusions of 
human society and almost on the sharp edge of despair, the 
opportunity to watch a pair of canary birds, or many pairs 
associated together, furnishes a source of comfort, if not 
hope. Without the aid of lawyers, doctors, ministers, or 
even Ethical Associations, to teach them the way in which 
they should go, you shall see the duties of their little lives 
promptly and cheerfully performed, the burdens of mater- 
nity not beyond their strength, and giving no indication of 
inherited curse, their beautiful progeny inheriting the phys- 
ical and mental qualities of their parents, and many other 
evidences of law and order working constantly upward, 
unless they are in some way unwisely interfered with by 
man. 

In whatever way, then, this branch of the subject may 
be studied, when thoroughly studied the conclusion reached 
must be that certainly nature has made no mistake in es- 
tablishing the principle of sex ; but we may sometimes be 
led to think that, in the management of it, "only man is 
vile." 

As to early associated life among human beings, the 
physical and psychological structure of living men and races, 
studied in the lights of the laws of heredity, inevitably im- 
ply conditions and relations analogous to or identical with 
those to be found among higher animals ; while archaeology 
discloses to us the early homes of men and families in caves, 
the rude working-tools, weapons and other implements they 
actually used, and many of their ways of life; and the va- 
rious stages of development, linked with that of historic 
times, confirms the original low or rudimentary state of 
men individually, and in their societary relations. 

In this day and age, thanks to Evolution, it is hardly 
necessary to frame any argument to show that men were 
not originally placed on this earth in a state of perfection 



Evolution of Society. 213 

from which, they lapsed. But we may still allude to the 
claims to that effect, handed down to and recently dominant 
among us, as interesting and as tending to confirm the 
teaching of Evolution, if it be considered as in the nature 
of aspiration, the expressed hope of a condition yet to be 
realized. 

We have seen that the initial force, out of which order 
was to come, was a centripetal one, and apparently directly 
antagonistic to that order — but that, at the very beginning, 
as we recognize it, a principle was established at the very 
core of things, by and through which balance of forces and 
harmony of motion were the result of tendencies that 
seemed to necessarily destroy them. The study of so- 
ciety discloses another instance of the same kind, and 
the principle runs through vegetal and animal life. Nothing 
could well be more selfish and centripetal than the original 
sexual impulse. Yet, initiating the family, it becomes the 
creator of society through the development of the altruistic 
or centrifugal tendencies, whose origin may be traced di- 
rectly to it. 

At the beginning of historic times the family was already 
in a comparatively advanced stage. Co-ordinately with 
human development everywhere, according to archaeological 
and historical evidences, a development of religious ideas 
has taken place. Indeed, societary development seems to 
have been largely dependent on religious development, if 
not governed thereby. The whole family life of the ancients, 
their society, and eventually the State itself, as it took shape 
among them, grew and developed around their domestic 
gods, and were limited thereby. They worshiped the 
manes, or shades of their fathers, as we worship a Father- 
God. Their ideas of creation did not go back of generation. 
The fathers were to them their creators, because through 
and by them alone, as they understood it, came the spark 
of life. The tombs of the fathers' were located near the 
house, to give access for frequent worship. Their gods 
were therefore ever present to the ancients, and had to do 
with all their acts as they went out and came in. Annual 
religious banquets, or feasts, were held in worship of these 
manes, the eldest son being the high-priest, and the wife, 
daughters and other women of the house being only com- 
petent to worship through him as such. The manes of 
their dead ancestors were, we are told, supposed to say, 



214 Evolution of Society. 

"May there be successively born of our line sons who, in 
all coining time, may offer us rice boiled in milk, honey, 
and clarified butter." Negligence of the son's duty to make 
these libations and sacrifices was not only the grossest pos- 
sible act of impiety, but was nothing less than the crime 
of parricide, multiplied as many times as there were ances- 
tors in the family. So long as these attentions were con- 
tinued the ancestors were the protecting gods of the family, 
providing for them, driving away and inflicting diseases 
upon all those who approached who had not descended 
lineally from them. Marriage among the Greeks and Ro- 
mans was controlled by the same principles ; the continuity 
of the family, — survival, — was the subject of most jealous 
care ; adultery was most impious, as it might taint their 
very god-head ; celibacy was forbidden ; divorce for sterility 
was enforced ; the women of the family were made subor- 
dinate ; the rights of property were fixed exclusively in the 
head of the family ; the right of succession and inheritance 
was controlled, and almost every act of life was regulated 
by this system. Their gods guarded the boundaries of the 
landed property of the family, and, later, of the tribe and city 
or State, with exceedingly jealous care, as they supposed. 

Every house had its altar and altar-fire, renewed once 
every year, and carefully kept meantime, and was the 
source of moral order in the family state. This altar-fire 
was concealed from outsiders, as were also the ceremonies, the 
creeds, the chants, the hymns and the prayers, which were 
transmitted only from the father-priest to the son destined 
to be the priest when the father had become one of the 
family gods. Justice for the wife, the sons, daughters and 
retainers rested in the house, and in no external city or 
State, in the beginning; the father as judge might take 
away the life of any member of the family, — wife, son, 
daughter or other. Strange as it may seem to us, this sys- 
tem developed great strength and endurance, and a high 
order of society. 

Sir Henry Maine defines the controlling characteristic of 
Ancient Society, thus founded, by the word Status; and the 
Modern Society, or the society that took its place, as being 
founded on Contract; the former being a natural state or 
condition, and the latter — in Avhich we are now living — 
being reached by consideration, examination and discussion, 
resulting in agreement or contract. 



Evolution of Society. 215 

When we were engaged in considering planetary evolu- 
tion, we found that the planets were located and swung in 
their orbits by the combination of two balanced opposing 
forces, one centripetal, the other centrifugal. Out of these 
opposing forces not only have the harmonies we have ob- 
served in the heavens grown, but eventually, in some sense, 
our own being and those elements and forces that are con- 
cerned in and control social action. An excess of either 
centripetal or centrifugal force in the planetary system 
would destroy harmony, and bring, or inaugurate, ruin. 

Similarly, societary harmony grows out of balanced ego- 
istic and altruistic moral forces ; and want of harmony grows 
out of an unbalanced relation of these forces. 

Status, then, being practically founded upon natural af- 
fection, the family state was a strong state, and built up 
and maintained a strong form of society, so long as these 
two forces permeated the State in balanced relations. But, 
as population increased, the family was found to be incapa- 
ble of taking all individuals into its relations. Therefore 
the tribe was formed, on the family plan or principle, but 
extended, with simulated fathers, not actual fathers gov- 
erned by natural affection, at its head. After the tribe came 
the curia, and then the city, formed on a similar plan, but 
the fathers at the head of each being at each stage so much 
further removed from the natural father and his balanced 
egoism and altruism. 

A society so constructed was sure to break down eventu- 
ally, because the natural altruistic or sympathetic force 
could not extend indefinitely, or much beyond the reach of 
the natural father, — whereupon the necessary balance of 
order would be destroyed, and injustice must prevail, with 
societary disorder and ruin certain to follow. And that 
was exactly what occurred in States so organized. Status 
Society broke down, and a mere makeshift — Contract So- 
ciety — took its place and has since held it, among so-called 
Christian nations. 

But Evolution teaches that Contract Society is not the 
final and perfect society, and that it is, through the defects. 
of the human understanding, in a sense the real cause of 
our present society troubles. Contract Society is the result 
of a laudable attempt to find, by the aid of the trammeled 
human understanding and imperfect discussion, a ruler for 
the world who would and could conduct its affairs on family 



216 Evolution of Society. 

principles and status, but which attempt failed at an early 
day, and has never since been renewed with any prospect 
of success until now. Indeed, however desirable, it cannot 
be successfully accomplished until not only the "hells" are 
converted into " benefit," but the devils themselves are con- 
verted into saints. These are precisely the undertakings 
that Evolution proposes, — admitting, however, that their 
accomplishment is work for the ages. 

The wisdom of the ancients was not equal to it, because, 
to them, nature and nature's life-giving Creator seemed, 
everywhere, at all times, to inextricably mingle malignity 
with kindness, not showing natural affection for his children 
in the State ; and therefore they compromised by accepting 
poor human justice established in Contract, instead of the 
permanent Divine Justice established by the God of the 
Universe, which they sought in vain to find. 

If Evolution has not already discovered how and what 
this justice is, and how it works, it at least points out the 
direction in which the promised land lies, and therefore the 
future hope of mankind in society seems to rest in its hands. 
Evolution places millennial conditions upon a scientific 
basis, and thereby makes them practically possible, taking 
them out of the domain of dreams and the visions of seers. 
It may therefore justly be called the gospel of good-will to 
mankind as declared by Science — since fatherly benefi- 
cence is its key-note in contemplating and setting forth the 
character of the Infinite Ruler of the universe. Perhaps 
the most important work of Evolution is the bringing of 
human knowledge and achievement to the assistance of the 
Divine law and purpose, and directing them as one force 
for the development and welfare of human society. 

Misleading bias of many kinds has already been men- 
tioned. Doubtless it interferes in all human affairs, but 
probably to a greater extent in the consideration and treat- 
ment of matters directly relating to society than elsewhere. 
Yet when bias is rectified or counterbalanced, errors of 
method still appear in the study and practical management 
of society. Mechanical principles and analogies furnish 
partial but not complete solutions. Evolution, in addition, 
brings to our aid the principles and analogies of organic 
life, by treating society itself as an organism, or at least as 
super-organic in its nature. 

Paramount importance is given to Biology, as a prepara- 



Evolution of Society. 217 

tion for and as a constant accompaniment of the study of 
Sociology, under the guidance of the evolutionary philoso- 
phy, not simply because Biology only can explain and en- 
able us to understand the units that in association make up 
the aggregate called Society; but also because biological 
principles seem to be in many cases the only principles 
by which society as a whole can be reduced to a system and 
understood. Treating society as a growth, or organism, 
Evolution undertakes to explain what has otherwise been 
-considered inexplicable, as not reduceable to any system of 
change, increase or diminishment, largely because of the 
supposed omnipotence and certain divergences of the human 
will in action. Evolution recognizes that the individual 
will has for its domain only an area in many respects nar- 
row, and in all respects bounded by well defined limits. 
And it recognizes further, that both individual men and all 
societies made up of them, live and move and have their 
being within a surrounding envelope or environment hav- 
ing many of the qualities of a mechanical matrix, or mould, 
— especially those qualities which act as barriers to resist 
the flow of the freest and most molten human purpose, — 
and also some of the powers of a living womb capable of 
producing organic life. 

At the very threshold, Evolution asks : What is Society ? 
And answers, that it is a living organism, or super-organism, 
and not a mere mechanical aggregation ; a lasting, and not 
a temporary arrangement ; capable of maintenance for gen- 
erations and centuries as an organized whole, while many 
times over the individual units composing it have been born 
and died out of it, without disintegration or substantial 
change of the whole.* 

Evolution finds no difficulty in holding, on self-evident 
grounds, that society is not an inorganic structure, — seeing, 
for one thing, that it is composed of living units. That 
society, however, is an organism, composed of parts having 
permanent relations analogous to those existing among the 
parts of a living body, does not at once appear to the stu- 
dent. Some inorganic aggregates, as crystals, seem to grow ; 
but living bodies and societies exhibit increase of bulk, 
alike, until they are overwhelmed or deprived of the neces- 
sary elements of growth. Alike, living bodies and societies, 
while increasing in bulk, from the beginning of the embry- 

* Principles of Sociology, Vol. I., Part II., Chap. II. 



218 Evolution of Society. 

onic period multiply and simultaneously differentiate their 
parts. In the newer parts of our own country we yearly 
see societies begin in homogeneous conditions, and rapidly 
become transformed into fully organized structures with all 
the organs and functions of the most advanced societies. 
Not being compelled to take all the steps of growth for 
themselves, and being privileged to borrow from others, 
they sometimes grow with a speed that suggests mere ag- 
gregation ; still the relations of their associated parts, 
on examination, are found to be those of the vital order. 
Then, in living bodies and in society, alike, with increase 
of bulk, comes progressive differentiation of connected, mu- 
tually dependent functions, resulting in a physiological 
division of labor in both cases, through developed organs 
adapted and specialized so as to accomplish a higher grade 
of work, thereby increasing the powers and raising the 
grade of the whole. 

Much of the difficulty of conceiving of society as an or- 
ganism arises from the fact that it is evident to the senses 
that society is composed of individual units having a life 
of their own, but with no apparent connecting tissue by 
which they are related to the other units composing society. 
We are therefore compelled to look deeper into the organ- 
ization of living bodies ; and when we do so, by the aid of 
modern Biology and modern instruments, we find that they 
also are built up out of cell-units ; that the differentiation 
of organs and functions in them is dependent on and ac- 
companied by the vital plasticity of these cell-units, or, in 
other words, on a change of function similar in many re- 
spects to that which takes place in and among the individ- 
ual units of society ; and that each cell of the animal body 
has still more or less of independent, individual life on 
which depend many of those characteristics that distinguish 
organic from inorganic bodies, — as capacity to unite again 
after being cut or separated by violence, to generate new 
cells, to repair injured tissue ; and even to transfer tissue 
from one part of an animal to another part of the same 
animal ; and also to transfer it from one animal to another 
animal — amounting to an emigration of cells from one 
country and allegiance, and naturalization in another and 
distinct country. We find, in fact, that living bodies are 
in reality communities of living cells, still in possession of 
many of the powers of independent cells, but contributing 



Evolution of Society. 219 

to and aiding to form a new societary unit out of the com- 
bination of such unit-cells. So, too, as in society the units 
may not be in perfect unity and under perfect control of 
society, in living bodies there are different degrees of unity 
with the body of Avhich they are a part, some having more 
individual power, some less. 

The apparent want of motion in most of the cells making 
up living bodies, hinders appreciation of the independent 
cell-life. But in the higher organisms there are to be found 
increasing numbers of cells having very free motion within 
limits, each with independent "life-histories," — as the 
blood corpuscles, which pass from infancy to adult life, and 
thence to old age, having each a career as complete in it- 
.self, in some respects, as any living thing, and all within 
the body of the animal, the life not being in any sense 
parasitic, but an elemental life, normal, necessary, and in 
entire harmony with the larger life of which it is, or cre- 
ates, an essential part. 

If time permitted, many other evidences might be pro- 
duced to show that " an ordinary living organism may be 
regarded as a nation of units that live individually and 
have many of them considerable degrees of independence "; 
and, on further noting in how many human units of the 
societary organism the individual life is limited and con- 
trolled by the societary life to which they belong, we shall 
perceive that when a nation of human beings is regarded 
as an organism, the analogy is by no means a forced one. 
In both cases the units, or some of them, may live after 
the aggregate has been destroyed, and, when undisturbed, 
the aggregate lives, although the units die and pass away 
after having performed their proper functions in full — 
to be succeeded by new generations of unit-citizens, for 
periods more or less indefinite. 

Further, it is found that no view of society is complete 
that does not take into consideration forms of life still 
lower than men, — as brute-animal and vegetal, — each of 
which constitutes an essential part of the societary organ- 
ism, and is found to correspond with essential parts and 
growth found in all animal organisms, and forming distinct 
classes of analogy. 

Among living organisms, as we ordinarily apprehend 
them, the seemingly essential feature is what may be called 
the cohering unity, or continuity of structure, not so ap- 



220 Evolution of Society. 

parent in society. But on looking into the organization of 
living bodies more thoroughly, it is found that such con- 
tinuity is not alone sufficient, but must be accompanied by 
capacities of intercommunication and control throughout,, 
which, being seriously impaired, though continuity may re- 
main, death and disintegration begin. An essential part of 
growth is this increase of capacity for intercommunication 
and control ; and when it begins to fail, as in paralysis or 
gangrene, the organism begins straightway to lose its char- 
acteristics as such. In the social aggregate a similar state 
of things is found to exist — establishing a mutual depend- 
ence of parts which constitutes organization. 

Nor is this conception of society as an organism so new 
and strange as it may seem to be. For many generations 
past, in the domain of law, it has been customary to treat 
aggregates of men, some known as private and others as 
public corporations, as artificial persons, to be held respon- 
sible to natural persons, to the State, and to other like arti- 
ficial persons, as natural persons are held, and having other 
powers and duties of natural persons. This has come 
about, apparently, because it was found impossible to deal 
with them on any other principle than that which assumed 
that they had the characteristics, qualities and powers of real 
persons. The artificial part of these corporate persons has 
been furnished either by the legislative branch of the State,. 
or the autocratic power of the king; but, nevertheless, 
characteristics of independent organic structure of high 
order are also to be found, among the most important of 
which is continuity of life beyond the ordinary periods of 
human life. 

In the Spencerian argument for the organic nature of 
society, there seems, however, to be one very essential but 
missing link. "Society," he says, "exists for the benefit 
of its members, not its members for the benefit of the so- 
ciety," there being no Social Sensorium, Consciousness not 
being concentrated in a small part of the aggregate, but 
being diffused throughout the aggregate, and all the units 
of society possessing the capacity for happiness and misery 
in equal or at least approximate degrees ; — whereas, in the 
individual organism, consciousness is concentrated in a 
small part of the aggregate, — the nervous system, — to 
which the assets of happiness and misery especially belong. 
And he holds that this difference between the individual 



Evolution of Society. 221 

and the societary organism must fundamentally affect our 
idea of the ends to be secured by social life. He admits, 
however, that men, as units of society, differ to an appreci- 
able extent in capacity for sensation and emotion, as do the 
units of individual organisms ; and it would not be difficult 
to show that in other respects there are corresponding dif- 
ferences. In the one, many of the cells or units act auto- 
matically, and, in the other, probably the larger part of the 
individual units act without the incentive of individual 
thought and volition, to a large extent. 

Before the days of Evolution, the prevailing view was 
that society was the result of a process, proceeding, or 
combination of processes or proceedings, in the nature of 
institution. And many of the observed phenomena accom- 
panying the formation of different societies do suggest a 
method analogous to instituting or building rather than de- 
veloping or growing. But it is to be noted that while build- 
ing is noisy work, and therefore attracts attention, growth 
is noiseless in its methods, and for that reason some of its 
greatest results have had less attention than they deserve. 
Therefore it is that so much of the history of the world 
must be rewritten. 

On looking more clearly into society, it is seen that en- 
largement is always accompanied by changes that follow 
and resemble those of growth in individual organisms, as 
stated in terms of the evolution philosophy and fact. And 
when evolutionary growth has done its work, examination 
discloses organic characteristics in social organs, structures 
and functions, to all of which Mr. Spencer applies the term 
or title of Super-organic, to distinguish it from the lower 
or individual organic form. 

Being an organism, society is not only capable of growth, 
but of decrease of vitality as well as increase, of disease 
as well as of health, and finally of death and decay as well 
as of life and growth. Certainly all will admit that, like the 
woman of the bible, society has suffered much from many 
physicians, and seems destined to continue to be afflicted 
in that way — in fact, never more than at the present time. 

The experience of Mr. Spencer teaches that a word of 
caution is required in treating society as an organism. The 
analogy must not be carried too far or applied too closely. 
Its values lie in "the mutual dependence of parts which 
they (the body politic and a living body) display in com- 



222 Evolution of Society. 

mon," in their structural and functional comparison, in 
"community in the fundamental principles of organiza- 
tion," and in the co-operative action of the parts in the 
whole.* 

Mr. .Spencer and his followers apply organic principles 
in the study of all the multitudinous customs and ceremo- 
nies of different societies, the world over, — and likewise 
in the study of all political forms, structures and instru- 
ments, all military, judicial, executive, legal, property, rev- 
enue and industrial systems. Even fashions, dress and 
personal adornment are not too sacred subjects for the pry- 
ing and spying eyes of these philosophers, who undertake 
by the aid of evolution to explain the origin and history of 
the whims of the fairer part of creation in these particu- 
lars. And yet human society, or our branch of it, seems to 
be at this late day and age in a state of almost inexplicable 
disorder, or at least without any common consensus as to 
the direction of future progress or as to the necessary steps 
to secure it. 

Surveying the vegetal and brute-animal worlds, these 
two forms of. society seem to have done their work well, 
since all the wealth of benefit we have therein is due to 
what it is no misuse of words to call their societary action. 
Primitive and prehistoric man also seems to have done his 
work well, since to him we owe the domestic animals and 
nearly all the forms of improved vegetal growth, as well as 
the improved stock of his race handed down to us from 
wild, savage and brute progenitors. The men of the early 
historic period are also entitled to, and do receive, our com- 
mendations for what they rightly did in their days and 
generations — for to them we moderns yet turn when the 
storm and stress of life are heaviest upon us and we cry 
out for consolation and hope. 

During something over two thousand years past, how- 
ever, a sort of blight seems to have come over and rested 
upon the most advanced societies of the world, — relaxed, 
to be sure, during the past four hundred years, more or 
less, and still relaxing, but whether permanently so remains 
to be seen. The older societies have with slight exception 
remained during these two thousand years in a state of 
stagnation, and need not here be considered. 

One of the earliest and most important duties the evolu- 

* Principles of Sociology, Vol. I, p. 613. 



Evolution of Society. 223 

tion philosophy has to perform is to explain to us the cause 
or causes of this apparent check in human progress among 
the most advanced peoples. The primary question that 
arises in this connection is : Whether those who have been 
of what we consider the highest and best form of human 
society, have been deprived of any portion of their neces- 
sary equipment for their work during that two thousand 
years ? 

According to Evolution the most important part of the 
animal organism is the sensorium. Little or no animal ev- 
olution could have taken place without its aid. Mr. Spen- 
cer says society has no sensorium, and it would seem that 
we need search no further to find the cause of arrested so- 
cietary evolution. 

The human intellect is, according to Evolution, the crown- 
ing human possession. Something more than two thousand 
years ago, among the Greeks, it reached, so far as we know, 
its highest elevation, but subsequently lost its position, and 
has not yet regained it. During most of that period, in 
the civilization to which we belong, the intellect has been 
under a ban, and in discredit. The power that declared and 
has enforced that ban is the so-called Christian Church. 

Evolution has cheerfully submitted to the most searching 
criticism, doubtless with great benefit ; and in view of the 
advantage secured to those who would remove the motes 
from the eyes of others by submitting to the removal of 
the beams from their own eyes, the defenders of the Chris- 
tian church ought to welcome like criticism. 

The substantial harmony of Revelation and Science, as 
explained by Evolution, has been already suggested. There 
is too little space left in which to marshal the features in 
which this harmony is found. Both imply one God, or one 
Supreme Power from whom all things proceed, to whom all 
obedience is due, with eternal life, reoiiic life, life from age- 
to age, survival, and the inheritance of the earth, as the 
common reward, return, or consequence of that obedience. 

The account we have of Creation, as an early statement 
of the origin of things, might be directly and logically im- 
plied by Evolution as necessary and inevitable, in view of 
the primitive conditions of the human understanding. Evo- 
lution finds some of its own fundamental principles of 
society anticipated in the Decalogue ; in the Jewish ceremo- 
nial law as the necessary means of control for a stiff-necked 



224 Evolution of Society. 

people ; and, in the existing Jew, finds a wonderful example 
of the application of its principles, as well as of the fidelity 
of the Supreme Power to the " Covenants " said to have 
been made with the fathers of his race. The history of the 
Jews confirms Evolution in its view of the family and the 
care and culture of the young ; of the primary importance 
of the selfish or egoistic principle as the law of life ; and of 
the duty, with all other getting, of getting understanding.. 
By careful study of the imperfect record, Evolution finds, 
or must find, in the teachings of the Founder of Christiani- 
ty, the method by which the "law and the prophets" are 
to be fulfilled, and not destroyed ; and this on evolutionary 
principles, through the practice of universal justice or 
righteousness, resulting in the relaxation of the struggle 
for bread and clothing, and in the inheritance of the earth 
by the meek instead of the violent. And it may be said 
that the interests of evolutionary sociology are profoundly 
concerned in the underlying philosophy of the transition 
from the Jewish system to a system of universal application 
— to the Jew and Gentile — as embodied in the words of the 
Master, which have been handed down to us ; since it seems- 
to bear upon the question of a sensorium for the societary 
organism, without which it must find itself classed among 
the blind, groping, worm-like and acephalic organisms of 
the world. Even those who have been repelled and disgusted 
by practical Christianity must admit that the original record, 
in so far as it discloses a plan and a purpose of teaching 
Life, and so far as it does teach the truth about it, is in 
harmony with Evolution. 

As herein considered, society in its complete sense is. 
Life writ large, and includes all life — associated vegetal, 
brute-animal, and human. And in a certain sense it is one- 
organism as such, since through the laws pervading life as 
a whole, like so many nerves, no part of it can be injured 
or benefited without affecting to some extent — however in- 
finitesimal — all other parts. Instance, our recent Eebellion. 
which came so near to reaching our Societary Sensorium 
and destroying the Union. It derived its initial force from 
the treatment of the cotton-plant and the soil on which it 
grew. The primary injustice was to both these factors, 
the secondary to the labor concerned, and eventually the 
life of the Nation itself was imperiled. Impoverishment 
of the soil defrauded the nlant-life first, and all other life 



Evolution of Society. 225 

after it in turn, resulting in a low condition of the entire 
Southern part of our social organism, that finally became 
unendurable, and produced the social disturbance of which 
we were witnesses. Numerous examples known to all, 
where justice to plant-life has resulted in individual and 
national prosperity, well-being, and development, require 
no mention. The sensory apparatus of society may not 
yet recognize these relations and the dependence of the 
higher upon the lower life as parts of the same organism, 
because of its present imperfections ; but the approximate 
proof of them is not a matter of difficulty ; and Evolution 
not only implies them, but it also implies present or event- 
ual capacity on the part of the human mind and of society 
to have knowledge of them, and to base action upon that 
knowledge. Only by and through such knowledge can our 
Contract Society ever be translated into that State which 
may be called Divine Status, or a status in harmony with 
all the laws of Life, of which the Family-Status Society, as 
defined by Maine, was but the miniature and prototype. 

In mere mechanical aggregation, in which individual cells 
are added or annexed to other like cells, there is no relation 
between them that permits differentiation and growth, and 
no sensory organ or function either in the individual cells, 
or in the aggregate. But in organic aggregation these must 
be present, and must have free play, or proper, normal 
growth and development cannot take place. 

The principle applies with augmented force in the social 
organism, and requires free play, especially for the individ- 
ual human mind as the primary and type of the societary 
mind. 

According to the evidence we have, the historical Christ, 
when dealing with the "kingdom of heaven" — which he 
said was at hand — as embracing his societary scheme for 
the relief and salvation of humanity, employs a single word 
as embodying the necessary condition precedent of such a 
scheme, Avhich embraces this principle and endorses it with 
all his high authority. 

The custodians of the record have concealed this fact, by 
falsely translating the word so used, — making it to read, 
" repent," and using it so as to require " repentance " as the 
necessary and effective preparation for the new Society. The 
words so translated are, in the original, meta-noeo and meta- 
noia. They relate, in reality, to mind and knowledge, and 



226 Evolution of Society. 

to that exercise of the mind and of that knowledge which 
is beyond (meta), — beyond mere sense perception and all 
concerns of Life, Society, and whatever relates thereto, 
looked at as truth from the point of view of the Supreme 
Power of which they are the product. 

This mistranslation began as early as the Latin Vulgate, 
and has continued down to this hour, protected with such 
care by suborned dictionaries, and otherwise, that although 
we have in the English language the cognate words, prog- 
nostic, diagnostic, agnostic, it is still wanting in the words 
metagnostic and metagnosticism, — although they are of 
such supreme importance in relation to the coming of the 
Kingdom of Heaven and the new and better society in which 
humanity has been promised relief from the grievous bur- 
dens of dominant imperfect Society. 

Meta-noetics being, then, for these reasons in part, as yet 
an unborn science — unless it be concealed in Evolution as 
its swaddling-clothes — we are hardly yet prepared to search 
for the Social Sensorium, but must wait for its development 
until the association of free-acting individual minds has in- 
tegrated the new organism in some recognizable form. 

If these positions are sound, the backward state of Modern 
Society, and the many afflictions it endures, are traceable 
to the Christian Church and its priesthood, who have been 
guilty of this falsification, and have hindered the normal 
development of that new society which it was their duty to 
help. 

Owing to what I believe is an unfortunate misunder- 
standing, the evolution philosophy has also become associated 
with important limitations of the human understanding, 
and evolutionists have acquired, or assumed, the title of 
Agnostics. Whatever may be the exigencies of strict phi- 
losophy and truth in defining the limits of the knowable, 
Evolution teaches that there are yet reserved possibilities 
in the human race and mind. The physiologist and chem- 
ist can now handle, weigh and analyze the material elements 
out of which further intellectual evolution may come, and 
it would seem too early to fix its absolute limits now. Cer- 
tainly so far as the arena of societary evolution is con- 
cerned, the intellect should have full scope, and philosophers 
should not unite with priests in keeping it imprisoned. 

In their days of decline, the Greeks of Athens erected 
an altar to the "Agnostic God." Paul, seeing that altar, 



Evolution of Society. 227 

preached to them a sermon on Mars Hill, in which he 
sought to check their superstition by presenting to them 
his Meta-gnostic God as the Christian substitute for their 
Agnostic deity. In the preaching and teaching of Christ 
himself, meta-gnosticism is everywhere associated with the 
coming of the kingdom of heaven, as a necessary prepara- 
tion therefor, and the pivotal turning-point of its inaugura- 
tion. 

No advance in knowledge can be made unless the human 
mind penetrates beyond the phenomena presented by the 
senses. So far the brutes themselves may go. Meta-noetics 
relates to this "knowledge beyond," or, literally, beyond- 
knowledge. This beyond-knowledge is the special domain 
of Evolution — the domain which it is exploiting and is to 
exploit. The senses tell us that the sun rises in the east. 
Beyond-knowledge, or meta-noetics, corrects the senses in 
this instance, as it does, or will do, in all other cases when 
it is permitted. For those, then, who would study sociolog- 
ical evolution, at least the essayist would substitute the 
title of Meta-gnostics instead of Agnostics, as more truly 
and accurately descriptive, and also as tending to bring all 
of them into harmony with that wonderful Man who, not- 
withstanding the falsification of his language and thought 
by those assuming its protection, has yet been such a power 
in the world for good. 

The members of this Association have sometimes been 
called "godless Spencerians." When it is discovered that- 
Evolution is in harmony with true Christianity, the oppor- 
tunity may come of raising the question as to who is really 
"godless" — if it is worth while. However that maybe, 
those who study Sociology by the aid of Evolution, earnest- 
ly seeking to know and apply the truth, cannot go far- 
astray. 



228 Evolution of Society. 



ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 

Me. Z. Sidney Sampson: — 

I have listened with interest to the lecture of Mr. Skilton. I 
hesitate, however, to speak upon such a wide subject as Sociology 
in the limited time at my disposal. It is interesting to learn from 
the speaker that we are called "godless Spencerians," for even 
abuse is better than indifference, and may lead to enlightenment. 
The early Christians were denounced as Atheists, and it has been 
the fate of the representatives of each higher and more rational 
view of the divine nature to be regarded as atheistical. The cor- 
rection of such misapprehensions may well be left to time and 
growing intelligence. 

The lecturer has presented various practical suggestions and ap- 
plications of the principles underlying the evolutionary view of the 
growth of society. Perhaps it may be useful if I attempt to define 
a little more clearly the terms "integration" and "differentia- 
tion," as these terms are applied by Mr. Spencer in describing the 
process of social evolution. Social integration is the compacting 
or condensation of individuals into communities. Social differen- 
tiation is the specialization of these communities — the tendency 
to classify the different functions of our complex social life, and 
to allot each to a separate class, profession or trade. Mr. Spencer 
applies to society the same principle which he finds dominant 
throughout the field of biological evolution. The same law which 
governs the differentiation and integration of protoplasm into the 
countless forms of animal and vegetable life, applies also to society, 
he affirms. The loose particles integrate, and form. either animal 
or social organisms, developing such organs as are necessary for 
the maintenance of the well-being of each. As the biological pro- 
cess is the resultant of the interaction of the organism with the 
environment, so in social evolution it is an external pressure which 
compels differentiation, producing government, commerce, relig- 
ious and educational institutions, diversity in trade and industries 
— all the manifold functions of the complex life of society. Spen- 
cer's argument from analogy, tracing the same law from vegetable 
to animal, from animal to man, from man to society regarded as 
an organism, is exceedingly ingenious, and seems almost conclu- 
sive. 



Evolution of Society. 229 

Mk. John A. Taylor: — 

There is nothing more pathetic than the contemplation of Her- 
hert Spencer's work, unfinished as it is; and as it will probably re- 
main. "Social Statics," one of his earliest works, is one of the 
most remarkable books ever written, though very imperfect in the 
author's eyes. He started with some accepted scientific ideas, 
which he attempted to apply to the existing social status, and 
went on from these to his elaborated theory of the social organism 
— an aggregated humanity. But in many things he has been able 
only to furnish the outline of a work which must be completed by 
others. When such a master-mind treats the subject of Sociology 
with so much diffidence, it is hardly to be expected that we should 
sound its depths in an evening's discussion. Though Spencer is 
not to be charged with empiricism, there is evident throughout 
his work a great yearning to meet the practical wants of humanity. 
We may all well strive to emulate his spirit in this respect. What 
I most admire in Mr. Spencer is the courage with which he attacks 
the errors and abuses of our conventional life and thought. To 
uplift the race, we must not only be willing to study methods, but 
we must have the courage of our matured convictions in the appli- 
cation of the results of our studies to the affairs of life. We are 
justified in cherishing a noble discontent in regard to present im- 
perfect social conditions, but we must also wisely strive for their 
betterment. And we must be patient in looking for results. All 
remember Spencer's words in the closing chapter of his "Study 
of Sociology," to the effect that students must not be discouraged 
by the lapse of time before society becomes perfect. So long as 
we are working in the right direction, we may well be hopeful for 
the future. 

Me. Heibt S. Bellows: — 

It seems to me that this question has been treated too much 
from the outside — that too much stress has been placed upon the 
influence of environment. There has been too little consideration 
of the inner forces — the forces of innate character and organiza- 
tion, in the development of society. I think outside pressure is 
not the cause of social aggregation, but that this is the result of a 
law of association which is not the product of external pressure. 
Out of this law of association, which is a part of the nature of in- 
dividual man, the necessity of government arises. 

Mb. William Hanson: — 

Mr. Hanson, at the President's suggestion, gave a brief account 
of a society in Atlanta, Georgia, of which he was a member, which 



230 Evolution of Society. 

has taken up and is now pursuing the study of Spencer's "First 
Principles." Continuing, he said: The principle involved in se- 
curing that balance of egoistic and altruistic forces which consti- 
tutes social equilibrium is the principle of justice. Spencer, in 
his "Social Statics," makes a grand endeavor to elucidate this 
principle. The egoistic force is now in the ascendant in society, 
but with the growth of altruism we shall become desirous of spend- 
ing ourselves in benevolent effort even beyond the requirements of 
justice. When this is done, social misery will disappear. 

Dr. Lewis G. Janes: — 

Mr. Skilton has given us an eminently suggestive paper. To 
follow out all the lines of thought indicated would involve much 
time and study. Instead of commenting on any of them, I will 
endeavor to supplement them in a single particular. I think 
no one has referred to Mr. Spencer's position as to the tem- 
porary nature of all governmental forms. The end of life,, 
the purpose of all social organizations, in his view, is the 
perfection of the individual; not, as the socialists would have 
it, the perfection of society under a government of force. Note 
the bearing of this conception on the social theories of our 
own time. In all our civilized communities, we have to meet the 
theories of the socialist on the one hand, and of the anarchist on 
the other: — the -one aiming at the complete subordination of the 
individual to society, the other at the abolition of all governmental 
control. The evolution philosophy, as applied to society, should 
enable us to choose a wise middle path between these extremes ; 
to avoid the anarchistic error of seeking the reformation of social 
abuses by revolution and the resolution of society into its individ- 
ual elements, seeing that society can be no better than the indi- 
viduals of which it is composed; — and to avoid also the equally 
serious error of obliterating individuality in a homogeneous, pa- 
ternally-governed, or communistic form of social organization. 
We should recognize the present utility of government in securing 
justice, while we insist that its forms shall be yielding, plastic, 
readily receptive of improvement, adapting themselves easily to 
the needs of the hour, and tending always toward individual per- 
fection and ultimate emancipation from external and artificial re- 
straints. 



EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY 



BY 

Z. SIDNEY SAMPSON. 



COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED 

IN CONNECTION WITH ESSAY X. 

Spencer's Sociology and Recent Discussions ; Coulange's Ancient 
r Jity ; Maine's Ancient Law, and Early Law and Customs ; Tylor's 
Primitive Culture ; Thompson's Religious Sentiments of the Human 
Mind; Clodd's Childhood of Religions. 



EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY. 



The study of the Evolution of Theology, — or, to use the 
more generic term which corresponds to the precise signifi- 
cation of the word Theology, the Evolution of Theism, or 
Theistic conceptions, — presents special difficulties, arising 
both from the nature of the inquiry, and from the princi- 
ples in accordance with which it must be conducted. In 
the investigation of what may be termed Objective Sociol- 
ogy, e. g., the Evolution of Society through the successive 
phases of patriarchal, tribal and national development, the 
rise of customs, laws and governments, and of political, in- 
dustrial and ecclesiastical institutions, we deal with proc- 
esses which may be observed, and which, — most, if not all 
of them, — are being exemplified at the present day, in some 
part of the globe, and in which we are materially assisted 
by historical, philological and monumental records. 

But the subject here under discussion lies wholly within 
the domain of what we may properly call Subjective Sociol- 
ogy, viz., the origin and development of purely mental con- 
ceptions. Such theistic ideas as have heretofore prevailed, 
or which now prevail, at any given place or period are con- 
ditioned and determined exclusively by the mind of that 
period and locality ; a fact which is visible and provable by 
present observation upon the different phases of theistic 
belief arising under the varying conditions of savage and 
civilized existence. Hence the student of this branch of 
Sociology is compelled to apply psychological principles. 
A complete explanation of the rise and development of 
theistic ideas would be a complete exposition, as well, of 
the Evolution of Mind in general, for it is along these lines 
that the mental faculty has been primarily exercised and 
advanced. 

We should note, for the purpose of defining the limits of 
the discussion, that our subject is not the Evolution of 
Eeligion, but of Theism only. While it is true that the 
words Theology and Eeligion are used, more or less, inter- 

* Copyright, 1889, by The New Ideal Publishing Co. 



234 Evolution of Theology. 

changeably, as when we speak of the Religions of the 
world. ; yet recent careful writers discriminate clearly be- 
tween them. Theology is a belief, Religion is an emotion. 
Questions of Theology or Theism are purely intellectual, 
and to be resolved, if they are to be resolved at all, through 
the discipline and exercise of the Speculative Reason. The 
Religious Sentiment has its outcome and expression in f aith r 
worship, ritual and ceremonial. Our discussion excludes, 
therefore, all these objective elements, for these have their 
significance only as exponents of such ideas as may be held 
concerning the nature and attributes of Deity or deities, as- 
these have appeared from time to time in religious history.* 

The Evolutionist, not being able to accept the explana- 
tion of the current Theology, as to how mankind have 
arrived at theistic ideas, — namely, that of an immediate- 
personal revelation, — is obliged, if he would take account 
of these matters, to endeavor, so far as possible, by the use 
of what we may call the historical imagination, to realize 
for himself the mental condition of primeval man, at a 
period so far removed that we may believe him to have been 
measurably inferior, in intellectual faculty, to the lowest- 
tribes now existing, as typified by the Fuegian of America r 
the Bushmen of Africa, or the wandering savages of Austra- 
lia ; and furthermore, in asking the question, How theistic 
ideas have arisen, he must divest the word "theistic" of 
any such meaning as is intended by its modern use. Prim- 
itive Man, and the lowest races of the present day, did not, 
and cannot, possess any conception of God or Deity, such 
as is implied among us by those words. To inquire whether 
they possess it would be as absurd as to ask whether a child 
of a year old had any understanding of the Philosophy of 
Kant. It is equally meaningless to ask whether tribes have 
existed, or now exist, who have no idea of God. As matter 
of fact no early men or tribes, or lowest races of the present 



*Want of space prevents our going into the deeply interesting question 
whether, in the animal kingdom, we discover indications of such mental faculty 
as may have been subsequently evolved into the distinctively moral and relig- 
ious ideas possessed by man. Darwin says, "The belief in God has often been, 
advanced as not only the greatest but the most complete of all the distinctions 
between man and the lower animals. It is, however, impossible to maintain 
that this belief is innate or instinctive in man. On the other hand, a belief in. 
all-pervading spiritual agencies seems to be universal, and apparently follows 
from a considerable advance in the reasoning powers of man, and from a still 
greater advance in his faculties of imagination, curiosity and wonder " (Descent 
of Man, Vol. II., p. 377). Those who are interested to look farther into the 
question must consult Dr. Romanes' recent exhaustive treatise on "Mental 
Evolution in Man." 



Evolution of Theology. 235 

-day, have had or now have it. At the same time, it is be- 
lieved that none have ever been discovered entirely devoid 
of a conception of beings superior to themselves, whom they 
worship, or at least recognize in some form of observance. 
When the Catholic mission of Dolores was established on 
the shores of San Francisco Bay, among tribes extremely 
low in the scale of intelligence, the missionary there placed 
in charge reported that he found the field wholly unoccupied ; 
for, in the vocabulary of these peoples, there was no word for 
.god, angel or devil. And Spanish historians have alleged that 
certain of the natives of South America had no inclination 
.to worship anything, high or low, neither from interested 
motives nor from fear. But in discussing these supposed 
exceptions, Mr. Spencer agrees with Sir John Lubbock that 
the existence among them of funeral ceremonies implies 
some idea, however vague, of ghost and ancestor worship. 

It is in the inability of primitive races, and of low types 
of the present day, to generalize upon observed facts and 
phenomena, that we find the explanation of the persistence 
of a low degree of mentality in large areas, and, at the same 
time, the clue to the successive gradual enlargement and 
development of theistic ideas among the nations. The 
savage knows particulars and can deal with isolated appear- 
ances, but deduces from these no general conceptions. He 
knows his own hut and his own weapon, and the hut and 
weapon of his neighbor ; but to draw from these, or any 
number of instances of these, the generic idea, hut or 
weapon, he is wholly incompetent, — and remains incompe- 
tent, until, having been brought within the influence of 
some environment favorable to mental progress, he, at first 
unconsciously, takes his earliest step in generalization.* 

It is just here that the investigator must bring into use 
the historical imagination. We deal, so customarily and 
spontaneously, with abstract ideas, our thoughts are fed and 
nourished in such an atmosphere of philosophical and gen- 
eralized conceptions, that we fail clearly to recognize that 
these are the product of ages of inherited mental experience. 
Our common speech is of laws, rules, causes and effects, 
principles. But these are, concededly, purely subjective 
ideas, answering to no single external fact, and merely 

Dr. Romanes, in the work before quoted, concludes, after an elaborate discus- 
sion of all prior views, that the faculty of induction or generalization, or 
abstraction, is the essential and controlling difference between man and the 
brute. 



236 Evolution of Theology. 

forms of the understanding. The period which, has elapsed 
since Greek philosophy was given to the world, as compared 
with the period antecedent to those philosophies, during 
which, by the slow evolution of the generalizing faculty, 
they were rendered possible, make Plato and Aristotle 
writers of but yesterday. And indeed, even when the dis- 
ciplined mind of the present seeks to catechise the words 
"law;" "principle," they escape all analysis, and we can 
only say, as the last word, that, like certain inorganic ele- 
ments, they are undecomposable. Small wonder it is, there- 
fore, if, for uncounted centuries, primitive man should have 
failed to rise to the point of intellectual advantage required 
for a mastery of the laws of matter and of mind, seeing that, 
when once grasped, they are, in their very nature, inexplica- 
ble in and of themselves. When, by some fortunate con- 
currence of favoring circumstances, primitive man first put, 
this fact with that other fact, and, in a tentative way, began 
his first experiments in comparison of resemblances and 
differences, and, in a rude fashion, to select, classify and 
arrange, under the inspiration of some vague conception of 
an all-comprehensive law, the future of knowledge was 
secure, Science was made possible, the Universe was to 
become revealed as Mind, Order and Beauty ; and the Twi- 
light of the Gods of fear, malice, mischief, and superstition, 
if to be long delayed, had been irrevocably decreed. 

Applying now what we have observed above as to the 
mental attitude of primeval races to the question imme- 
diately under discussion, it follows that they recognize gods, 
but not God; powers, but no Power. They individualize 
only. The varied phenomena of Nature are forced upon 
the attention and experience of primitive man in aspects 
both beneficial and injurious. The latter he makes, intui- 
tively, an object of concern. The beneficent aspects pass 
mostly unregarded, and are accepted as matters of course. 
That which causes pain, or arouses fear, incites him to the 
earliest acts of religious devotion, viz., propitiation and 
sacrifice. All primal religious instincts have their root in 
the sentiment of fear, which dominates the savage of to-day 
as well, and centuries of culture and progress have but par- 
tially succeeded in replacing it by higher ideals. Primitive 
man, knowing himself to possess certain mental and bodily 
powers, involuntarily attributes unusual, or unexpected 
appearances and changes in objects animate and inanimate 



Evolution of Theology. 237 

to an indwelling human personality endowed with powers 
and activities similar to his own, capable of producing like 
effects, but by supra-natural forces. He does not recognize 
plant-spirits or animal-spirits as distinct in their form or 
mode of operation, i. e., as possessing respectively the form 
of plant, animal, etc. There is, in each case, the idea of a 
being, behind the appearances and effects, exhibiting itself 
as power in action, and controlled by a personal will. 

Recently, however, there has been much discussion of the 
question whether this ascription by early man of personal 
powers to natural objects is, in the first instance, directly 
made by him, and an immediate result of the impact of 
mind upon surrounding phenomena ; or whether it is a sec- 
ondary development, and reached through a prior experience. 

The former theory, known generally as the animistic, had 
been held quite universally until the publication of Mr. 
Spencer's views on ghost and ancestor worship, which, as 
seeking to find therein the origin of all theistic and relig- 
ious conceptions, is, in its general outline and scope, at 
variance with the animistic view. Personification of natu- 
ral objects is not, he claims, first in order in the history of 
theistic ideas. These latter are primarily otherwise derived. 
Primitive man does not conceive of Mind as distinct from 
Body. Whatever experiences befall him he does not place 
to the account of either, to the exclusion of the other. In 
sleep and dreams he engages in battle and the chase, pre- 
pares and partakes of food, exults in victory, and fears 
approaching danger. Waking, he recalls these vivid expe- 
riences, but wakes to find himself lying in the same place 
where he betook himself to rest. We say that these are 
merely fancies ; the mind has been sporting with illusions, 
while the body has been quiescent. Our true self has been 
oblivious to these. ISJot so, however, does he say. His 
inevitable conclusion is that some other self than his waking 
self has, for the while, left the body, taken to itself some 
other body, — has been journeying, warring, hunting, and, 
at the moment of return to ordinary consciousness, has 
resumed its occupation of the body-proper. These visions 
and experiences are not to him unreal. They are as real as 
the familiar objects and pursuits of his waking hours. He 
truly saw his friend or foe. He entertains no question that 
his other-self experiences are as genuine as those which 
affect him in ordinary life. This idea of a duplicate-self, 



238 Evolution of Theology. 

which leaves the body and returns to it at pleasure, is inten- 
sified by the phenomena of swooning, of apoplexy, catalepsy 
and other conditions of complete or partial insensibility. 
All bodily action is suspended until the return to conscious 
life. What more rational, for him, than to class these facts, 
observed in others, with those observed in himself, in the 
case of sleeping and dreaming ? In these instances also, 
the double of the waking self has been absent and has re- 
turned ; and when, after repeated efforts to recall life to the 
motionless body, it never again gives evidence of vitality, 
it must be, he thinks, that the other self has departed to 
some other region. 

Upon these experiences, argues Mr. Spencer, arises the 
idea of existence elsewhere. These other-world spirits, 
swarming everywhere, become invested, to the mind of the 
savage, with exceptional powers over himself for good or evil, 
mostly the latter. They may possess and control the bodies 
of the living. Worship for the sake of the propitiation of 
the ghost is a necessary sequence. Out of the many and 
varied observances therefrom resulting, come all forms of 
worship. Adopting mostly Mr. Spencer's words, awe of 
the ghost makes sacred the sheltering structure of the tomb. 
This expands into the temple. The tomb itself becomes the 
altar. The other-world spirit must be fed and supplied with 
articles for use and service as when here. Hence the uni- 
versal custom of oblations and offerings to the dead, growing 
eventually into a formal religious service and ceremonial 
at the grave of the departed. Abstinence from food in order 
that he may be sufficiently provided, develops into fasting 
as a pious practice. Journeys to the tomb with gifts become 
pilgrimages to the shrine. Praises of the dead and prayers 
to them become in time embodied in the later elaborate 
ritual and ceremonial of the temple-service. In proportion 
to the rank and power of the deceased in his life here, are 
the degrees of supernatural power and faculty ascribed to 
him. The ghost becomes a god. The greatest ancestor 
becomes the god-in-chief. Hence arise all forms and phases 
of early theistic belief, distinctly originating in ancestor- 
worship. These ideas are not, primarily, projections of the 
imagination of early man by contact with Nature, but they 
develop from the conception of the other self, and, when 
once so acquired, lead to subsequent personifications of 
natural phenomena. 



Evolution of Theology. 239 

Mr. Spencer enforces his argument with a great wealth 
of illustration. The objection has been made, however, that 
notwithstanding the conceded universal prevalence of ances- 
tor-worship, the reasoning, and the facts which are brought 
to its support, are mainly negative, so far as they are pre- 
sented in opposition to the theory of animism. The further 
objection has been made that ancestor-worship implies a 
degree of fixity in tribal and family relationships which 
must be wanting in the case of the earliest races, when 
hardly yet differentiated from the animal kingdom. That 
savages of a low type, merely creatures of instinct and 
emotion, of unregulated imagination, who start at their own 
shadows, believing them to be, in fact, their mysterious 
other-selves, should directly ascribe the possession of powers 
and faculties like their own to objects in motion, seems 
possible, and Mr. Spencer himself appears to allow it when 
he says, "If we set out with the truth that the laws of 
Mind are the same throughout the animal kingdom, we 
shall see that from the behavior of animals in presence of 
unfamiliar phenomena we may obtain some clue to the inter- 
pretation which primitive man makes of such phenomena. 
A brute even of great power and courage betrays alarm in 
presence of a moving object the like of which it has never 
seen before. Dread of the unknown appears to be a univer- 
sal emotion even when the unknown is not at all porten- 
tous in character." * 

The incoherent and disconnected theologies, if we may so 
term them, of early races, represent therefore, exactly the 
loose and disconnected mental ideas which alone they are 
capable of forming, owing to their deficiency in the general- 
izing faculty. We may expect that progress in theistic 
conceptions will, consequently, be apparent in those direc- 
tions in which this faculty is first exercised ; and the facts 
correspond to this expectation. Clearly, it will earliest 
become manifest in connection with natural phenomena 
which are of daily and familiar observation. While it is 
historically true that these ideas of ghosts, demons, sorcerers 
and ancestral spirits persist, and have wide influence even 
into periods of well developed civilization, yet there will 
gradually emerge, in communities where circumstances are 
favorable to mental development, broader theistic ideas, 
arising from a widening classification of natural powers and 

* Principles of Sociology. 



240 Evolution of Theology. 

objects. Hence the evolution of mythologies, with their 
deities of the upper and nether worlds, of air, earth and 
ocean, assigned each to a specific province or function, and 
differentiated into ranks, orders and hierarchies. It is not 
possible to define clearly the line where pure fetishism ends 
and mythologizing begins. There is an element of mythol- 
ogy in all fetish-worship, through and by the idea of per- 
sonification, which, invariably, as we have seen, underlies 
the latter ; and, on the other hand, an element of fetish- 
worship is discoverable in the most elaborate mythological 
systems. The broad difference, however, is between a frag- 
mentary and disjointed view of things, and an orderly con- 
ception, or an attempt at it. Mythology is further specially 
characterized by the rise and growth of myths, or theistic 
legends, as the word implies. This of itself gives evidence 
of mental advance. When primitive man first attempted 
an explanation of the mysterious powers and activities, 
around him, and, as a result, evolved the story and legend, 
he had begun to ask the question Why ? and in fact had 
begun to philosophize. The numerous instances adduced 
by Spencer and others show that this tendency to myth- 
making was in operation at the earliest periods, among the 
lowest tribes of which we have any account, co-eval with 
pure fetish-worship ; insomuch so that we must concede 
the period when fetish-worship alone prevailed to have been 
antecedent to all records. 

We have already, in considering the Evolution of Society, 
seen how, as a result of the integration, or consolidation of 
social structures, there results within the social structure 
itself, divisions into specific lines of action, among classes 
of its individual members. Primitive societies, loosely ag- 
gregated, exhibit no considerable diversity of trades, or gov- 
ernmental processes. These arise, and have been evolved 
into the modern highly complex social orders by the com- 
pacting of the social mass. The same principle is apparent 
in the evolution of the purely mental conceptions which 
underlie all theological development. It is only under what 
may be called an integration of theistic ideas that variety 
and classification among these become possible. For exam- 
ple, savages of a low type will take for their fetish-god any 
chance object which they believe will serve the purpose of 
bringing them success in their immediate undertaking, or 
afford them protection in immediate dp tiger. But commu- 



Evolution of Theology. 241 

nities which have reached the mythological stage proper, 
allow no such confusion in respect to the attributes and 
offices of their various deities. No Greek would ever have 
sacrificed to Neptune for success in agriculture, nor to Ceres 
for success in trade. The gods of the Assyrian, Babylonian, 
Greek and Eoman pantheons have generally each their 
assigned rank and prerogatives. I say generally, for any 
student of these complicated mythologies knows that there 
is, in many instances, a duplication of attributes, especially 
among the so-called Olympic deities of Greece, and, though 
to a less extent, among the greater gods of the Eoman sys- 
tem. But considering all these mythologies, each in its 
entirety, the principle holds good. To what extent this 
differentiation has been carried is best illustrated by the 
elaborate and complex mythology of the Hesiodic Theogony. 
We have no space, nor is it the purpose here, to go into 
any detailed account of mythological systems. We have 
seen that they rest upon a wider generalization, and that 
by the working of a yet undisciplined Beason through the 
imagination, the myth is their special feature. We have 
to note, however, one other feature, and that is the separa- 
tion, in the myth-system, of the personality of the god from 
the object with which the fetish-worshiper's mind identified 
him. Mythology conceives its gods as controlling the powers 
and phenomena of Nature, but as distinct from these in 
their personality. Zeus is not the thunderbolt itself, nor 
in, nor of it, but as distinct therefrom, in his own individu- 
ality, as Minos or Hercules ; and the separation is still more 
marked in the Boman system. This, peculiarity depends 
upon the rise in man of the idea of mind as distinct from 
body. The development of theistic ideas keeps even pace 
with the mental development of the nation. With advancing 
intelligence, arises the consciousness of mind and thought 
conceived as existing apart from mere bodily functions. 
This conception, as we have stated, primitive and savage 
races do not grasp. Upon this distinction, when once fully 
established, is based the idea of the Self, viz., the essential 
personality of mind. The modifications of theism corre- 
spond. The gods become active intelligences, superhuman 
in faculty. The dominant gods become incarnations of the 
most powerful and controlling sentiments and ideals evolved 
by the national life, and in this transition we pass from the 
fetish-gocls of mere brute-force to the deities of mind, and 



242 Evolution of Theology. 

ultimately of pure intelligence, who are the exponents of 
an aggregate social life governed mainly by these ideas. 

In further support of the statement that through the more 
highly organized and varied social state there arise the more 
highly organized and varied theisms, we have the fact that 
societies which have not become thus organized do not show 
in their mythologies the operation of this classifying prin- 
ciple to any such extent. The mythology of the early 
Aryans, as set forth in the Vedas, notably the Big- Veda, 
remained, mostly, mere personifications of natural phenom- 
ena, which, to the mind of the early settler of Northern 
India, were the most impressive of all his experiences, and 
became the principal factor in all his theological concep- 
tions. Aryan mythology is replete with storm-gods, gods 
of the Dawn and the Twilight and of solar and lunar phe- 
nomena, and these never became wholly disconnected from 
the substance of the phenomena themselves. Agni, the god 
of tire ; Surya, of the sun ; the Maruts, of the thunder and 
tempest, do not impress us with the idea of personality dis- 
tinct from the elemental forces with which they are asso- 
ciated. Inclra possesses it in the highest degree, but the 
element of self-conscious intelligence is not prominent. 
Indra is the slayer of the dragon who withholds the bless- 
ing of the sunlight, and ranks with the mere power-gods. 
As a consequence, the religious thought of India diverged 
on the one side into the system of the complex and absurd 
ceremonial-worship of the Brahmanas, and thereby, ulti- 
mately, into the manifold idolatries now prevailing ; and, on 
the other, by a philosophical reaction, into the recondite and 
mystic philosophy of the Vedanta. The same unregulated 
ideas are discoverable in the Teutonic and Scandinavian 
mythologies. In both these instances there was no compact 
development of social or national life, and consequently no 
highly developed mythological system. 

Moreover, as, in the well ordered State, the functions of 
government, and the regulation of the social order, the 
administration of law, and the permanence of family rela- 
tionships and civil obligations are conspicuous features, all 
these will be reflected in the popular mythology where these 
conditions exist. So it was in the Greek and Roman States. 
Their mythologies are, essentially, governmental, and, as 
we might say, sociological. The mythologies of Assyria, 
Babylonia and Egypt are the reflex of the despotisms which 



Evolution of Theology. 243 

there prevailed. The King being the God-incarnate, the 
religious sentiment was one of mere subjection, mostly 
unrelieved by any ethical features. Obedience and worship 
were first in consequence, and, although the ideas of sin and 
its punishment became early prominent in the Osiris-worship 
of Egypt, the subsequent rise to influence of the worship 
of Ra and Ammon largely obscured the moral idea incul- 
cated by the older religion. 

Mythology and fetish-worship are together properly in- 
cluded in the term polytheism. The issue out of these, by 
a slow evolution, of the monotheistic idea follows in the 
order of development. That such an idea was certain to 
emerge at some time and place in religious history, was an 
inevitable consequence of the advance in the generalizing 
faculty possessed by man. The same impulse towards cen- 
tralization in theistic ideas, by which he rose from the dis- 
connected and unrelated fancies of fetish-worship to a 
rational mythology, compelled a further advance to mono- 
theism, — to the conception of a Primal Being, a single 
Source, a Unity which should be comprehensive of alb phe- 
nomena, the sole result which would satisfy man's advancing 
thought. If the immediate outcome was essentially an 
anthropomorphic conception, it was still an immense advance 
upon the miscellaneous and kaleidoscopic mythologies of 
polytheism ; though these had claimed good reason for 
existence, as transitional and, indeed, necessary phases. 
That the monotheistic idea was mainly given to the world 
through the medium of Hebrew thought is a circumstance 
due to the subjection of the Hebrew race to a mental and 
social environment favorable to the development of this 
idea among them. It was the evolution there of a germ im- 
planted in the human mind everywhere. Every polytheism 
has within itself the " promise and potency " of monotheism. 
The Hebrew did not consciously formulate the doctrine on 
philosophical principles, — it was a growth with him. That 
there has existed among many peoples and races what we 
may term a monotheistic sub-consciousness has been ably 
shown by Mr. S. Baring-Gould,* by evidences which are 
conclusive. "Although Mosaism," says he, "must be 
regarded as the mother of Christianity and Islamism, yet 
classic antiquity, behind its imagery of myth and above its 
pantheon, recognized, feebly and fitfully, it is true, but 

♦Origin and Development of Religions Belief. 



244 Evolution of Theology. 

nevertheless really, the Unity of the Godhead. It is possi- 
ble to form an almost complete system of monotheism 
from the Greek and Latin authors, which fact, if it does not 
prove that such a system had been precipitated into dogma, 
at least shows that it floated in the classic mind. * * * 
Among the barbarous races of Africa and America, from 
behind the veil of myth, flash occasional gleams from the 
face of the One God." To the instances collated by him 
we may add the Dyaus-Pitar of Vedic mythology. The dis- 
cussion, for and against Prof. Max Muller's claim that this 
is a true monotheistic conception, whichever way determined, 
serves to bring into relief the truth our author insists upon. 

Before passing to a brief further word on Hebrew mono- 
theism, we must take note of an intermediate development ; 
that is, intermediate in the development of theistic ideas, — 
viz., the dualistic theologies. Of these we recognize three 
schools : the strict theistic dualism of the Persians, the 
mythological dualism of the Gnostics and the philosophical 
dualism of the Neo-Platonists and the Kabbalists. Dualism 
is simply a step in advance beyond polytheism, and, in the 
natural sequence of religious thought, it issues in monothe- 
ism. In Dualism, the factors, or at least the leading factors 
in the system are reduced to two, — again a proof of the 
tendency of the mind to progress from lesser to wider gen- 
eralizations. In the case of the Persian religion, the duali- 
ty was based upon the mutually opposing principles of Good 
and Evil, which, as embodied and personified respectively 
in Ormuzd and Ahriman, constituted a true theistic dualism ; 
although, as subordinate to these, inferior deities, proceed- 
ing from the highest by emanation, were admitted to exist. 
The Gnostic systems, both the Syrian and Alexandrian, and 
the later more abstruse Neo-Platonism, with all their mani- 
fold unreal speculations and factitious systems, rested funda- 
mentally upon the conception of Mind as opposed to Matter, 
and of Absolute Being as opposed to the world-phenomena. 
The philosophical interest for the history of religious thought 
in all these, is in the efforts therein made to solve the 
problems of apparent diversity in an underlying Unity, and 
to account for the reason of the existence of antagonistic 
forces in Man and Nature. 

It was not so much that the Hebrew prepared the way 
for the reception of monotheism as a philosophical idea, but 
that he infused into this idea a profoundly religious and 



Evolution of Theology. 245 

ethical significance, which gave to it its wonderful power 
of deeply and permanently moulding the future of religious 
speculation, and transforming previous ideas. But this 
result was reached only after centuries of discipline and 
teaching. The Yahweh of early Hebraism was admittedly 
the god of the Hebrews only. That other tribes and nations 
had also their tribal and national gods was not then ques- 
tioned. Yahweh was simply greater than surrounding gods. 
His worship was deeply tinged with the hideous sacrifices 
of Baal and Moloch worship, and the continual lapsing of 
the people into a worship of other gods proves that the 
lofty monotheistic ideas of a subsequent time were not an 
inspiration from the people at large. They were the out- 
come of the prophetic teaching, holding forth, with unswerv- 
ing zeal, in spite of gross idolatries and of national defeat 
and captivity, the ideal of a Deity of Righteousness and 
Mercy. The rise of what may be called Judicial and Moral 
Theology is thereby mainly due to Hebrew prophecy. 

With the arrival at a true monotheism we reach the close 
of Objective Anthropomorphism, — i. e., gods conceived in 
merely objective and physical aspects ; and attain to a true 
Subjective Anthropomorphism, i. e., Deity conceived under 
judicial and moral attributes. It was immensely to the 
advantage of religious speculation that the Hebrew idea, 
when it went forth to take possession of the civilized world, 
to the discomfiture of incongruous and decaying polytheisms, 
should be thus centred upon this conception of Moral Ex- 
cellence as its controlling thought. Indeed, without it, it 
would have gone nowhere and come to naught. Had Hebrew 
theism, simply by insisting upon the worship of the ancient 
Yahweh as a Nature-God, attempted to force its ideal upon 
other nations, it would properly have been met with the 
answer that the Greek Zeus and Roman Jupiter fully satis- 
fied the ideal. As a result of the essential difference 
between the two, while the entire pantheon of Greek and 
Roman divinities passed into oblivion under the criticism 
and ridicule of the schools of philosophy, and left in 
their place nothing but avowed atheism and barren skep- 
ticism, which, in time, led to an utter debasement of public 
and private morals, the conception developed by the 
Hebrew, resting substantially upon the ideals of justice 
and right conduct, contained within itself a principle of 
vitality which could and did expand with the advance in 



246 Evolution of Theology. 

moral sentiment among all by whom the idea was accepted. 
The Hebrew Yahweh — divested however, almost wholly, 
at least among the more intelligent, of purely objective 
personality, and conceived under his moral attributes — is 
to-day the God of Christendom. 

There have been, however, two easily recognized stages 
of development, and this accounts for the use of the terms 
judicial and moral theism, or theology. By judicial theol- 
ogy I mean that system in which Deity is viewed mainly in 
the aspect of a Judge and Avenger. This was the older and 
severer phase of Hebraism. The sin is against Yahweh, 
and not primarily against the neighbor, and it is for the 
former that atonement is offered. Deifications of physical 
forces cease with the growth of moral ideas. But these, as 
the history of morals clearly proves, are not in the first in- 
stance properly ethical ideas. The stress is upon the duties 
owed to Deity. It is the infraction of these which provokes 
to anger and demands propitiation. Adam is punished 
solely for disobedience to a command of the Lord, not for 
sin against another. This is characteristic of the Hebrew 
theological idea down to the preaching of the prophets, who, 
as has been remarked, contributed mostly to the truly 
ethical element, and insisted upon justice to the fellow-man, 
personal righteousness, and the subordination to these of 
ceremonial and sacrifice, or the abolition of the latter alto- 
gether. Christianity for the first two centuries was an 
amplification of the prophetical ideas in the direction of a 
pure morality. The doctrine of the sin against God, and 
the consequent necessity of an atonement to an offended 
Deity, was revived with the later schools of philosophical 
theology, and remains embodied in the creeds of modern 
times, — with this essential difference, however, that the 
ethical school of theology is fast gaining recognition, as is 
evidenced by the growth of the new views which seek to 
place religious obligation upon the basis of conduct rather 
than upon the lines of systematic theology. An advance 
is perceptibly being made towards a truly ethical monothe- 
ism. 

This necessarily brief outline brings us to the close of 
the history of theism so far as this has developed into estab- 
lished systems of belief. These ideas of Deity as a Bight- 
eous Judge and Moral Governor control the beliefs of the 
present, and the various existing creeds are expansions of 



Evolution of Theology. 247 

them, in logical form. With these we have not to do, other- 
wise than in their relation to the conception of a Deity. 
Discussion of the specialized dogmas of the Christian creeds 
belongs to the domain of Christian Dogmatics. 

But in stating that modern theism, so far as developed 
into existing ecclesiastical institutions, rests upon these 
ideas, we do not imply that further evolution has not taken 
place in religious thought. In our previous examination 
we have shown how the mind has, by slow successive stages, 
risen from particulars to generals, and have reached the 
monotheistic Christian idea of a Divine Personality charac- 
terized by self-conscious intelligence. But there have been, 
at all times, some who have objected to any conception of 
Deity under any limitations of Personality, subjective as 
well as objective. God conceived as a Personality, under 
any implications of that word, or conceived as in any wise 
consciously existing as a separate Entity apart from the 
totality of things, or as operating upon matter external to 
himself, has been and is, to them, not only intellectually 
impossible but morally objectionable, as a limitation of 
Infinite Power, and derogatory to the idea of an Infinite 
Deity. The evolution of the various forms of Pantheism 
has been the result, both materialistic and idealistic ; the 
former merging all existence, and thought as well, in 
matter ; the latter resolving everything into the ideal, or 
into forms of thought. The Pantheist is forced into his 
position by the same impulse of the educated mind towards 
wider generalizations which compels fetishism to yield to 
mythology and the latter to monotheism. In other words, 
the Pantheist claims that the prevailing monotheism is, in 
fact, a dualism and not a proper monotheism at all ; that Deity 
on the one side and the Universe of Matter and Man on the 
other is really no advance, philosophically, upon the Gnostic 
or Neo-Platonic theory. Pantheism, by merging the two, 
endeavors to arrive at the conception of the All-God, as the 
word strictly implies, and seeks for a basic Monism as the 
ground of all existence and phenomena. Pantheism, to the 
mind of many, is synonymous with ungodly atheism. But 
something closely allied to Pantheism must be the true, 
rational and reverent theism, unless we choose to rest in 
such partial and limited ideas, descriptive of the Infinite, 
as those which abound in the current theology. The fact 
is, however, that not a creed has ever been formulated which 



248 Evolution of Theology. 

does not, in its setting forth of the Nature and Attributes 
of God, contain the germ, essentially, of a Pantheism as 
radical as has ever been propounded from Spinoza to Spen- 
cer. Omniscience, Omnipresence and Omnipotence, as used 
in articles of belief and confessions of faith, are words void 
of meaning except with pantheistic implications. Expand 
these and similar words, under metaphysical treatment, and 
any idea of Personality and Self-Consciousness in Deity 
must disappear, in any sense in which words are used by 
us or understood among us. This conclusion does not cer- 
tainly dispose of the question whether, in the last analysis, 
if we could make it, some quality or attribute corresponding 
to Personality and Consciousness may not be found to exist 
in the Infinite. It is reasonable to claim that, as the stream 
cannot rise higher than its source, the fact that human per- 
sonality and self-consciousness have been evolved in mental 
progress, argues that something higher than this, not some- 
thing lower, has been its origin ; but any such expressions 
as Infinite Personality or Infinite Consciousness are so 
wholly beyond our mental reach that they escape all com- 
prehension. 

Pantheism has taken forms as varying as the different 
views of the Universe which the philosophies of the world 
have set forth, and an account of them here is impossible. 
In all of them the search is for a fundamental Unity, and 
they can not be charged with irreligion. A rational religion 
has been the object of all, except the comparatively few 
systems in which the ultra-materialistic view has led to 
atheism. The expressions Universal Mind, Universal Soul, 
are the terms in which idealistic Pantheism strives to real- 
ize in thought those more comprehensive views which it 
professes. 

Beyond Pantheism there is but one farther step which 
can be taken. The Philosophy of the Absolute will accept 
not even the terms Universal Mind, Soul, or Spirit. It 
insists that these phases are but expansions of merely human 
ideas of personal mind, soul or spirit, and still, therefore, 
imply a limitation which does not allow a free development 
of a true doctrine of the Infinite. These words still imply 
consciousness, and that implies limitation. The question 
is discussed necessarily upon metaphysical lines exclusively, 
and is substantially this : The Infinite, ex vi termini, is that 
which is without limit, and, so conceived, is an original and 



Evolution of Theology. 249 

not a derived form of thought. To affirm limitations or 
relations in an Infinite, in any possible aspect either of 
thought or existence, is to fundamentally destroy the very 
idea of an Infinite. Now, all merely human thought and 
existence arise and develop under certain well known and 
recognized limitations of Time, Space and physical and 
mental activity. In short, all human mind and action are 
inexorably conditioned by certain external factors, viz., 
natural forces and social forces ; and also by certain sub- 
jective factors, viz., processes of mental action, which be- 
come known to us in the light of consciousness. But what 
is consciousness, and what does it imply ? What conscious- 
ness is, in and of itself, must remain forever unknown to 
us. It is simply "the light of all our seeing." It, however, 
involves two things : first, a person who is conscious ; sec- 
ondly, a something external to himself of which he is con- 
scious. That is, a subject, the person ; and an object external 
to him, upon which he exercises his faculty of perception. 
Human consciousness, and therefore all human knowledge, 
.are wholly relative ; but this cannot be the case with the 
Infinite. To apply such conditions to the Infinite would 
be to affirm that the Infinite cognized something external to 
itself as an object of knowledge. It would impose upon it 
a limitation which would be destructive to the Idea. Nor 
can we in anywise seek to express the Infinite in any form 
of definition. We must simply affirm that it is and there 
cease ; for all definition must be in terms of human speech, 
and therefore essentially fail to conform to the Idea, — as 
much so as if we attempted to express the idea of infinite 
space by the measurements of a yard-stick. 

We must, therefore, says this latest school, cease from 
all speculation as to the essential nature and mode of being 
of the Infinite, and accept an Absolute which is to us Un- 
knowable as the primary philosophical conception. "The 
Absolute," to quote the words of Dean Mansel,* " is a term 
expressing no object of thought, but only a denial of the 
relation by which Thought is constituted." 

The Doctrine of the Absolute, declining to describe the In- 
finite in terms even of Universal Soul or Universal Mind, 
brings us to the ultimate, most abstract position which Meta- 
physics and Speculation can reach, beyond which there can be 
nothing further, unless we choose to deliver ourselves over to 

* Limits of Religious Thought. 



250 Evolution of Theology. 

atheism, which is not only the negation of religion, but also 
of philosophy. Of Agnosticism and Positivism I have not 
spoken. Agnosticism is simply an attitude of the mind 
towards all theological speculation, and refuses to enter upon 
it, claiming all such questions to be insoluble from the 
nature of the case. Positivism on the theistic side is also 
agnostic, and therefore devotes itself exclusively to the 
amelioration of the social order. These, therefore, yield 
nothing to the history of theism in the way of constructive 
thought. 

It is not claimed, and could not be, that religious history 
shows, in any part of the world, a consecutive development 
of all these successive phases of theistic belief. In every 
nation, some one of them has been mostly predominant. 
Pantheistic and similar views have been the outcome of 
individual speculation, at least in later times, and have arisen 
from the philosophical schools. The tendency of the general 
movement, however, wherever there has been movement, is 
along the same lines as in scientific thought, viz., from nar- 
rower to wider generalization. This is characteristic of it as 
a whole, — following, thereby, the natural order of the Evolu- 
tion of Mind, and, so far as it does so, or is allowed freely 
to do so, progressing from the lower to the higher ideals 
according to the true law of development.* 



*It is manifestly impossible to do more than suggest the position of the Doc- 
trine of the Absolute, in its relation to prior views. The object is only to show 
how it stands related to previous philosophies as the ultimate and necessarily 
flnal generalization. We should note, however, that while Mr. Spencer accepts 
the conclusion above quoted from Dr. Mansel, as a logical consequence of his 
premises, he asserts, nevertheless, the valid existence of what he terms an 
"indefinite consciousness" of the Absolute, which, as entering necessarily in 
all contemplation of the Absolute, is an ineradicable factor therein, and that 
this is the sufficient basis for all essentially religious ideas, whereby in fact all 
that there is essentially religious in all phases of theistic belief has been pre- 
served. 

Further discussion here is impossible. The reader must he referred to Mr. 
Spencer's "First Principles." An interesting and thoughtful critique upon 
Mr. Spencer's views as to this "indefinite consciousness" considered m refer- 
ence to, and in comparison with, his doctrine of the relativity of ideas, will be 
found in the first part of Prof. John Caird's "Philosophy of Religion." Mr. 
Spencer contends that his doctrine of the Absolute is not a negation ; that it 
is the highest possible affirmation. It is a plenum, and not a vacuum. It is 
perhaps somewhat unfortunate that he should have entitled the first part of the 
First Principles, "The Unknowable," thus giving occasion for much useless 
and worthless criticism of the Synthetic Philosophy as essentially destructive 
and not constructive. "The Absolute is Unknowable," is the idea therein 
presented, although the words are used more or less interchangeably. 



Evolution of Theology. 251 



ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 

Me. Frederick B. Hawley: — 

I am in such substantial accord with the lecturer, that I will 
merely take up the subject where he has left it, and touch upon 
some of the present phases of the evolution of theology. Looking 
toward the future, we must be careful not to take too long a step 
in theological progress at once. From the theistic belief of Christen- 
dom, with its man-God and its special providences, to a belief in 
the Infinite and Absolute — the Unknowable of Mr. Spencer's 
philosophy — is a very long step indeed. God and immortality 
are the ruling ideas of the present theology. As to immortality, 
the doctrine of the persistence of force goes far to justify us in 
such a belief, though perhaps not in that of the continuance of 
personal consciousness. That which we know as mind and thought 
must persist in some form: it cannot be destroyed. The current 
theistic idea of God is a combination of human and infinite at- 
tributes. Such a union is unthinkable, and these ideas must 
ultimately be disassociated. The conception of Deity must be 
deanthropomorphized. There has already been a gradual readjust- 
ment of theological ideas, and the trend of modern thought is in 
harmony with the evolution philosophy. I must take exception 
to the lecturer's position as to consciousness. Consciousness, it 
appears to me, is not necessarily finite, or limited to the human 
mind. It can be conceived as an attribute of the Infinite. 

Mr. Thaddeus B. Wakeman: — 

Notwithstanding the quarrels of the philosophers as to the 
priority of certain phases of theological belief — whether ancestor- 
worship preceded or followed idol-worship, etc., — it is evident 
that Fetishism was the foundation of theology. Then came Sabae- 
anism, and, following this, Polytheism. The next great change was 
from Polytheism to Monotheism. Monotheism broke down with 
the downfall of its cosmogony. The final outcome of theological 
evolution is Positivism. Its conception of deity is that of pantile- . 
ism — the conception of the All — u Das Alle" in Goethe's words. 
We cannot attribute to this great All our human thoughts and 
limitations. But we can understand some of its laws, and, adapt- 
ing ourselves to them, strive for the perfection of humanity. The 
idea of Humanity stands as the mediator between the human 
mind and the All. It takes the place of the Christian Saviour and 



252 Evolution of Theology. 

God, and replaces the theologic immortality with an earthly beyond 
instead of a heavenly above. It is astonishing to find this discus- 
sion of the evolution of the god-idea conducted in a church. This- 
notable event begins the day of hope for the emancipation of the 
human mind from superstition. 

Rev. Db. Gustav Gottheie: — 

I may say that I am a living example of the development of 
Jewish theology. Perhaps Mr. Wakeman would say that the Jewish 
race has been kept back three thousand years by its belief in a 
personal God; but this belief, which I hold most firmly, has not 
prevented me from studying and understanding philosophical 
opinions on these questions. As respects a belief in evolution, I 
am an agnostic, because, for one thing, evolution seems to have 
come to a stop, satisfied, leaving nothing for the future to do. Are 
we to progress no further in our thought? Abraham's idea of 
God may have been as noble as the modern idea. We do not derive 
our ideas of God from the outside world. There is in man a faculty 
which can conceive of God. We must look to that for the origin 
of theology — not to fetishism or idolatry. The lecturer has criti- 
cised the Jewish fealty to God rather than to man. But really 
this is the higher thought : We love our neighbor, not because he 
is always lovable, but because God has imposed upon us the obli- 
gation to love him. Why should you love humanity ? There is- 
nothing in nature from which to derive a law of obligation. 
Modern thinkers speak the ethical language of the ancient religion- 
without believing in its God — apparently; though at heart they 
do believe in him. The Jewish belief in rival gods was never held 
by the noblest of our race. It was discarded by all as early as the 
eighth century before our era. The Jewish God is the ancestor 
of all theism. Man's moral nature must have been formed from 
the conception of a moral God. Judaism, as the mother of Chris- 
tianity, should be treated with more respect. Judaism has not 
passed through the "#hree stages" of theological, metaphysical 
and positive thought : it has remained theological throughout. Is 
it the worse for this ? Monotheistic religions will furnish in the- 
future, as they have in the past, the energy for reforming the 
world. As to immortality, I have a right to demand the continu- 
ance of my existence, which has cost so much effort and endeavor.. 

Rev. John W. Chadwick: — 

"Who shall come after the King?" However much we may 
disagree with Dr. Gottheil, we must all admit that his was a right 



Evolution of Theology. 253 

royal word. I cannot agree, however, with his account of the 
origin of morality. Religion and morality had separate sources — 
they ai-e often separate in the lives of men. Colonel Ingersoll 
holds some rational views in an illiberal way, but he spoke well 
when he inverted the popular epigram, and made it read, "An 
honest God's the noblest work of man." I must disagree with 
Dr. Gottheil, and affirm that the ascription of morality to the 
Jewish God followed, and did not precede, the development of a 
higher morality among the Jewish people. It is equally foolish 
and irrational to be too familiar with Gocl, and to take the position 
that we have gotten through with him. The trouble with Pos- 
itivism, notwithstanding its many grand and noble ideas, which 
have been an inspiration to me throughout my ministry, is that it 
rested in the metaphysical stage of development, giving to the ab- 
straction "Humanity," the guise of personality. 

"Unless above himself he can erect himself , 
How poor a thing is man ! ' ' 

Not only above the humble ones but above all, including the 
greatest of human kind. Where did humanity come from? Back 
of man, of "humanity," is the earth; back of the earth there must 
be "an Infinite and Eternal Energy whence all things proceed." 
To that I bow my heart; that I worship, not altogether ignorantly 
and foolishly, I believe. 

De. Lewis G. Janes: — 

It seems to me that this question of the consciousness and per- 
sonality of the Absolute may well be left where Mr. Spencer has 
left it. He affirms, in substance, that if we may not assert person- 
ality and consciousness of the "Infinite and Eternal Energy 
whence air things proceed," we may be assured that its state is 
not lower, but infinitely higher than that which we denote by 
these terms. As evolutionists, we seem justified in affirming this; 
otherwise we assert inf erentially that these traits have been created, 
not evolved. Logically, the lower cannot produce the higher. 
That must be involved in the totality of things which is evolved in 
the differentiated individual. As evolutionists, let us not be en- 
trapped by the faulty logic of the special-creationist. 



EVOLUTION OF MORALS 



BY 

LEWIS G. JANES 

Author of "A Study of Primitive Christianity," "The Evolution 
of the Earth," etc., etc. 



COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED 

IN CONNECTION WITH ESSAY XI. 

Spencer's Psychology, Data of Ethics, and Ethics of Kant (in 
Fortnightly Review, July, 1888, and Popular Science Monthly, Sep- 
tember, 1888) ; Fiske's Cosmic Philosophy ; Bain's Moral Science; 
Staniland "Wake's Evolution of Morality ; Savage's Morals of Evo- 
lution ; Thompson's Problem of Evil ; Schurman's Kantian Ethics 
and Ethics of Evolution, and Ethical Import of Darwinism ; Clif- 
ford's Scientific Basis of Morals (in Contemporary Beview, Septem- 
ber, 1875); Sheldon Amos' s Science of Law ; Dr. C. C. Everett's 
Essay on The New Ethics (in Unitarian Beview, October, 1878) ; 
Frances Power Cobbe's Darwinism in Morals; On a Moral Sense, 
in Darwin's Descent of Man. 



EVOLUTION OF MORALS. 



"Virtue is the adherence in action to the nature of things, and the 
nature of things makes it prevalent. " 

Kalph Waldo Emerson : Spiritual Laws. 

It has been tersely said that " the moral is the measure 
of health." This is true not only of man, but of ideas, of 
institutions, of religions, and of philosophical systems. 
These, too, are rightly regarded with suspicion if found 
wanting when subjected to the moral test. A system of 
thought doubtless finds its ultimate sanctions in evidences 
appealing to the intellect ; but any apparent deficiencies on 
the ethical side, affecting the guidance of conduct and the 
development of character, should justly subject its claims 
to renewed and rigid scrutiny. That only is completely 
reasonable which is sane, healthy, moral. 

It is precisely on this ground that the Evolution philos- 
ophy has been most violently assailed by its critics. This 
fact, however, should not of itself create distrust of the 
essential validity of the philosophy. Such assaults have 
been the common fate of all new systems of thought, since 
man began to drop the plummets of his reason into the 
ocean-depths of his physical and psychical being and envir- 
onment. To the conservative mind, the new and untrodden 
path always seems full of dangers. The turn-pike road of 
the fathers is the safe and narrow way. The engineer who 
sets out through the wilderness to survey a path for the 
iron rails, is committing an act of sacrilege and impiety. 
Seeing that this is so, it behooves us nevertheless to look 
well to the ethical foundations of this new doctrine of 
Evolution. The welfare of men and of kingdoms may depend 
upon their stability and strength. 

The present age is a period of transition. Old sanctions 
are being undermined. Man fronts the Universe and the 
problems of life in a new attitude. The revolution in thought 
through which we are passing has been well termed, by 

* Copyright, 1889, by The New Ideal Publishing Co. 



258 Evolution of Morals. 

Mr. Savage, " A change of front of the Universe." It is 
the passage of man, in his mental estate, from dependent 
childhood to self-reliant manhood — always a critical and 
dangerous period in the history of the individual, none the 
less critical and dangerous in the life of a nation or a civil- 
ization. Heretofore the ethical systems of the world have, 
in the main, rested on the sanctions of theology — upon 
man's thought of God — instead of upon the Divine Reality 
as revealed in the nature of things. It has been assumed 
that man's supreme obligations were due to God or the gods, 
as he conceived them, and that they were enforced by a sys- 
tem of rewards and penalties to be bestowed or inflicted in 
a future state of existence. The new philosophy affirms 
that man's primary obligation is to his fellow-man — that 
duty grows out of the necessities of social communion ; that 
it is founded in the nature of things, instead of in the 
arbitrary will of an absent deity ; that its penalties are not 
extrinsic but intrinsic — that they are registered immedi- 
ately on the tablets of character, and their enforcement is 
dependent upon no speculative beliefs, whatever may be 
the theological implications involved in such beliefs. The 
old sanctions, resting on theology, are losing their force 
and efficacy in all thinking minds. A few only, as yet, 
comprehend the significance and bearing of modern ""cien- 
tific thought, and especially of the doctrine of evolution, 
upon the foundations of morality ; hence the assumed and 
not altogether imaginary danger of a " moral interregnum " 
— a temporary lapse into laxity of thought and depravity 
of life. 

Intuitional metaphysics joins with theology in the at- 
tempt to discredit the foundations of evolutionary ethics. 
The sanctions of morality, it declares, rest not indeed upon 
the arbitrary mandates of deity, but upon the nature of the 
human mind. The sense of obligation is a primary intui- 
tion of consciousness. It has had no causal genesis — no 
historical evolution. Its " ought" is the "categorical im- 
perative," which cannot be analyzed, scientifically investi- 
gated, or traced to any less definite or coherent substratum 
of primitive impulse. The intuitive system appeals for 
rational recognition by its fundamental assumption of the 
supremacy of reason, and affirms its competence to deal with 
the problems of philosophy and psychology by the deductive 
or a priori method, independent of the facts of experience. 



Evolution of Morals. 259' 

In ethics, it rejects as incompetent all moral judgments 
based upon experiential tests. . 

The actual bearing of the doctrine thus assailed, upon 
ethical sanctions, may best be understood by the study of 
its theory of the genesis and development of the moral 
sense. It should be said at the outset, however, that the 
leading representatives of the new school of thought by no 
means admit the validity of these charges of their critics. 
The evolution philosophy affirms the supremacy of ethics, 
and makes moral science the culmination of its entire sys- 
tem of thought. " My ultimate purpose," says Mr. Spencer, 
in his preface to the Data of Ethics, "lying behind all 
proximate purposes, has been that of finding for the princi- 
ples of right and wrong, in conduct at large, a scientific 
basis." In its investigation of morals, the new philosophy 
lays its foundation upon the solid rock of fact, as revealed 
in human experience. Its ethical structure does not rest 
upon a cloud-fabric of theological or metaphysical assump- 
tion, but upon human nature itself — upon man's natural 
desire and effort to make the most of life, both in its per- 
sonal and its social aspects, and upon the observed good or 
evil effects of actions, judged by this practical test. In 
collecting and collating its facts, it follows the scientific 
method — studying man as he exists to-day, and as he has 
existed throughout the entire period of his evolution. As 
in the field of the physical sciences, commencing with the 
historical era, it prolongs its vision into prehistoric times 
by a legitimate use of the scientific imagination. By the 
study of savage races and the investigation of language and 
archaeological remains, it forms a vivid conception of man 
as he was gradually outgrowing the inheritance of his brute 
ancestry, and progressing toward civilization. 

Even more deeply than this, the Evolution philosophy 
searches for facts on which to rest its science of morals. 
It perceives that moral conduct is only a part of a larger- 
whole — conduct in general. It is necessary, therefore, to 
study conduct first in its universal aspect, in order rightly 
to estimate the nature and status of ethical conduct. Con- 
duct may be tersely defined, in the language of Mr. Spencer, 
as " acts adjusted to ends." * It includes only those actions 
which are accompanied by volition, excluding those which 
are automatic and mechanical. In the lower forms of or- 

* Spencer's Data of Ethics. 



260 Evolution of Morals. 

ganic life, consciousness is vague, indefinite, and protoplasmic 
— limited to mere sentience in its most primitive and undif- 
ferentiated form. Sucli organisms manifest but little evi- 
dence of definite, conscious purpose. Their action is mainly 
automatic, in response to external stimuli. The polyp has 
no special organs of sense ; it does not even seek intelli- 
gently for its food, or manifest a definite purpose to propa- 
gate its kind. Its action is more like that of a vegetable 
than a conscious being. Attached to a support, it appro- 
priates suitable articles of nourishment whenever they are 
brought in contact with it by the action of external forces. 
It propagates its race by gemmation or budding, like a 
vegetable organism. The differentiation of purposeful 
actions, as we ascend the scale of being, is a gradual and 
progressive process — a process of evolution. With greater 
complexity of structure, we find an ever-increasing number 
of purposeful actions, directed toward definite and intelligi- 
ble ends. Food is intelligently sought, instead of being 
passively appropriated from accidental contact. Dangers 
-are intentionally avoided. Life becomes less the sport of 
accident — comes more and more within the scope of intelli- 
gent volition. The probability of fulfilling its natural 
period steadily increases as we advance from infusorium to 
asciclian, from ascidian to fish, from fish to reptile, from 
reptile to mammal, from brute to man. Life not only in- 
creases in relative duration, but also in breadth or amount. 
Conduct increases in complexity as it reaches successively 
higher stages of evolution. In estimating the relative posi- 
tion of an organism in the scale of being, we must consider 
not merely the length of its life, but rather the sum of its 
vital activities. The elephant lives longer than man, but 
it does not live as much as man. Its activities are fewer, 
its adjustments of acts to ends less definite and numerous. 
This principle of the gradual evolution of conduct in defi- 
niteness and complexity applies not only to conduct in gen- 
eral, but also, evidently, to those volitional acts which 
constitute the yet undifferentiated protoplasm of moral 
conduct. 

The primary motive which governs the purposeful actions 
of the lower organisms is the desire for self-preservation. 
Their voluntary movements are directed to securing nutri- 
ment, and to escaping from dangers which threaten to 
terminate their existence. Propagating with marvelous 



Evolution of Morals. 261 

rapidity, the contest for existence forces them into compe- 
tition and conflict with their kind, as well as into the 
struggle against the inertia or opposition of natural forces. 
Thus the problem of life steadily increases in complexity. 
It demands greater activities of mind and body, and the 
demand induces the supply. Out of the desire and purpose 
to live, and the conflict consequent upon action in accordance 
with that purpose, — the inter-action of intelligent volition 
in the organism and the stress of environing conditions, — 
have grown all the splendors of the intellectual activities, 
all the diversified wonders of organic structure and function. 

As intelligence increases, it is at length naturally per- 
ceived that the welfare of the individual organism is largely 
dependent upon the preservation and perpetuation of the 
race. The latter end, after a time, to some degree supplants 
the primitive impulse for self-preservation as a conscious 
motive for voluntary effort. In the lowest organisms the 
race is perpetuated without conscious purpose — sometimes 
by fission, or automatic sub-division, each section or part of 
an original unitary organism forming, when separated, an 
independent individual. This process is automatically ini- 
tiated whenever increasing size in the organism, or dimin- 
ished food-supply, renders nourishment too difficult ; or 
when other physical conditions over which the organism 
has no voluntary control, operate to produce a like result. 
The action is purely instinctive and purposeless. Higher 
in the scale of being, intelligence co-operates more and more 
with inherited instinct in securing race-perpetuation. Off- 
spring require and receive more care. Many of the higher 
-animals will risk their own lives, or deprive themselves of 
food, to protect or feed their mates or their young during the 
breeding season. 

Accepting the Darwinian account of man's origin,* we 
must conceive of him as emerging from brutehood possessed 
of these two inherited instincts of self-preservation and 
race-perpetuation. The historical period evidently consti- 
tutes but the smallest fraction of the time during which he 
has existed on the earth. Some six or seven thousand years, 
at most, bring us to the beginnings of human history ; but 
the facts of man's present condition, and the evidence of 
ancient monuments and archaeological remains, render it 
necessary for us to assume a period of several hundred 

* Darwin's Descent of Man. 



262 Evolution of Morals. 

thousand years since man was derived from that old-world 
ape, "probably arboreal in its habits," which Mr. Darwin 
regards as man's immediate ancestor. Into this dim past, 
guided by such facts as we may obtain from archaeological, 
philological and aboriginal studies, we must prolong our 
mental vision, and form such conception as we may of the 
characters of our early ancestors, and the probable facts 
involved in the evolution of man's moral nature. 

Somehow, in the struggle for existence, primitive man 
had evolved greater intellectual capacity and acuteness than 
the brute-creatures by whom he was surrounded. His 
relative feebleness, and the consequent adversities against 
which he had to struggle, doubtless helped to secure this 
result. It is this intellectual characteristic - — closely 
related on its biological side to the development and posses- 
sion of a fore-limb and hand capable of manual dexterity, 
and the physical organs and intellectual possibility of 
speech — which, in the judgment of Mr. Darwin, differen- 
tiates man from the lower animals. This superior intellect- 
ual capacity has its bearing on the evolution of conduct, as 
we have already seen ; but a fact even more pertinent to our- 
inquiry, as Mr. Eiske has shown,* is the lengthening of the 
period of infancy, which necessitated more prolonged care 
for the offspring of man's progenitor than that which is 
bestowed by any other animal. It was registered in the 
great Book of Life, of which man's history constitutes the 
latest chapter, that only by becoming as a little child could 
he enter into the high heaven of moral aspiration and en- 
deavor. 

The earliest instincts of primitive man were doubtless 
purely egoistic, like those of the brutes ; they were not im- 
moral, properly speaking, but un-moral; the moral sense 
was as yet undeveloped. If proof of this assertion is needed, 
it may be found in the study of language — in the investi- 
gation of the origins of those words which we now use to 
define and express ethical conceptions. "If we examine 
the words, those oldest prehistoric testimonies," says G-eiger, 
an eminent philological authority, " we shall find that all 
[expressions of] moral notions contain something morally 
indifferent." The original meaning of "right," for exam- 
ple, is straight; of "wrong," mining or crooked. "Con- 
science" has primarily an intellectual, "ought" and "duty " 

*Fiske's Cosmic Philosophy. 



Evolution of Morals. 263 

a commercial, not a moral signification. These words come 
to represent ethical ideas only by a process of metaphorical 
transformation. " But why," continues the authority just 
quoted, "have not the morally good and bad their own 
names in language ? Why do we know them from some- 
thing else that previously had its appellation ? Evidently 
because language dates from a period when a moral judg- 
ment, a knowledge of good and evil, had not yet dawned in 
the human mind." * 

With some of the higher animals, primitive man inherited, 
however, in common with the gregarious instinct, an in- 
stinctive sympathetic quality in which Mr. Darwin distin- 
guishes the germs of morality, f These earliest social 
tendencies, as well as those subsequently developed, are 
directly related to that steady increase of population, which 
intensified the struggle for existence, and thereby com- 
pelled greater activity of body and intellect in the effort to 
preserve life. As this process progressed, man's conduct 
became more highly differentiated and evolved than that of 
any other animal. Memory became more vivid and com- 
prehensive. He looked backward and compared the effects 
of his past actions, as determined by diverse motives, and 
was influenced by this recollection when similar emergencies 
arose thereafter. % As all his motives were egoistic, looking- 
toward self-preservation and self-gratification, his conduct 
cannot, however, yet be regarded as moral. If the instinct 
for self-preservation could be satisfied by protecting and 
ministering to companion and offspring, well and good ; if, 
as he judged, by their destruction, no moral scruples stood 
in the way of his deadly purpose. 

The long period of infancy nevertheless held the family 
together, and necessitated a continuance of those acts of 
mutual forbearance and affection which cease among animals 
when the young are able to make shift for themselves. The 
mother ministered to the child, while the father gathered 
food and protected the family from wild beasts and savage 
men. Other children came, perhaps, before the care of the 
mother over the first-born could be relaxed. So, in the rude 
cave-dwelling, grew up the germ of the home — ■ the earliest 



*Geiger's Address delivered to the Merchants of Frankfort-on-the-Main. In 
the Australian, and some other languages of extant savage races, there are no 
words to express justice, or moral obligation, sin or guilt. 

t Darwin's Descent of Man. 

J Ibid., I., pp. 90, 100. 



264 Evolution of Morals. 

example of the permanent family relation.* The preserva- 
tion of the family became recognized as essential to the 
life and happiness of the individual. The family became a 
larger self, and toward the preservation of this self instead 
of the individual self, the efforts of each member of the 
family were directed. f This change involved still greater 
complexity in the adjustment of acts to ends — more active 
intelligence, greater fulness and length of life : — in a word, 
a higher evolution of conduct. It was probably during this 
earliest stage of social evolution that language was evolved, 
giving a great impulse both to intellectual development, and 
to that tendency to social combination out of which has 
grown the moral sense. " Any being," says Darwin, " if it 
vary, however slightly, in a manner profitable to itself, will 
have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally 
selected." Such a variation, evidently, was this change in 
conduct, as a higher order of intelligence and greater facil- 
ities for social communication were evolved. The vital 
activities, no longer exhausted in the struggle to live and 
the effort to perpetuate the race, turned naturally into 
other channels. As a larger average number of individuals 
reached maturity, reproductive activities were diminished 
and the struggle for existence was ameliorated. % The law 
of competitive contest which, superficially regarded, seemed 
to threaten either universal selfishness or universal destruc- 
tion, was found to contain the proper antidote for these 
evils in the natural result of its own operation. The co- 
operative family, it is evident, would be better able to cope 
with unfavorable conditions in the struggle for existence 
than the lone anthropoid progenitor of man had ever been.§ 
The growth of the family-self into the tribal-self, of the 
tribe into the city and State, doubtless proceeded along the 
lines which we have already indicated in describing the 
evolution of the family ; resulting in a gradual enlargement 
of the area of altruistic service, a constant diminution of 
warfare and struggle, a higher order of individual and social 
life. Our study of the evolution of society has proved to 

* It is not assumed that the monogamic family constituted the earliest form 
of the domestic relation. Doubtless polygamous and polyandrous relations 
succeeded the primitive herdal (gregarious) habits of man's progenitors, pre- 
ceding the monogamic family in the order of evolution. The theory of moral 
evolution herewith set forth requires only a permanent family relationship, 
however constituted. 

f Wake's Evolution of Morality. 

% Spencer's Essay on the Law of Population. 

§ Lone, though gregarious, because his motives were fundamentally egoistic. 



Evolution of Morals. 265 

lis that the great nations of antiquity, and the civilizations 
of our own time were developed, from the primitive family 
as the social unit. The family altar has ever been the 
school for the moral culture of the race. The full signifi- 
cance of these facts of social evolution, in their relation to 
our topic, is only made manifest when we perceive that 
throughout the entire process, from its beginning in the 
rude cave-dwellings of primitive man, the obligation to serve 
others has been substituted ever more and more widely for 
the obligation to serve one's self, as the conscious motive 
in the government of conduct. Man has progressively iden- 
tified his individual welfare with that of ever-increasing 
numbers of his fellow-men. The instinct of obligation is, 
indeed, intuitive from the beginning; an inheritance not 
only from man's brute-progenitors, but from far away origins 
in the operations of inorganic forces. It is akin to those 
instinctive gropings of vegetable forms, deep-buried in the 
earth, for light and nourishment. It impelled volition in 
the lowest conscious adaptations of acts to ends. In its 
primitive form, however, it was an egoistic, not a moral im- 
pulse. The " ought " of primitive man was not a moral obli- 
gation ; it was a recognition of something owed to himself. 
The sense of duty, as we understand it, was not born until 
the secondary and indirect motive of race-maintenance and 
altruistic service was consciously and voluntarily substi- 
tuted for the primary, egoistic motive of self-preservation 
and self-gratification. By this substitution, — the gradual 
and entirely natural result of growing intelligence and 
pleasurable experience in altruistic service, — conscious al- 
truistic feeling and desire have grown out of egoism, Duty 
has supplanted an animal instinct. Yet here has been no 
creation, but merely a process of transformation, of evolu- 
tion. The "raw-material" of morality is found in the 
simplest orderly manifestations of volitional activities in 
organic nature ; — yes, back even in those steadfast laws 
and tendencies which are manifest in the action of the inor- 
ganic universe. Stability, order, law, evolutionary tendency 
— -these are the essential elements in morality, as in the 
differentiation and integration of nebulous matter, and the 
movements of the planets around their central suns. In the 
last analysis it is not two things that fill the mind with awe, 
as in the familiar phrase of Kant, but one thing, whether it 



260 Evolution of Morals. 

be manifested in the order of the galaxies, or in the orderly 
impulse to right action which we term Conscience or Duty. 

Perhaps the modus operandi of moral evolution may be 
better understood by studying the psychological principles 
underlying the entire process of organic development from 
yet another point of view. The growth of the manifold 
faculties of sentient organisms can only be understood on 
the fundamental assumption that life is inherently good, 
and that each successive stage in the evolution of life is 
productive, on the whole, of an increase in the sum total of 
subjective satisfactions.* In order to survive in the strug- 
gle for existence, each organism and race must adapt itself 
to its environment. Upon its greater or less degree of 
adaptability depends the amount of conscious satisfaction 
which it derives from the use of its faculties — or, in other 
words, from its conscious life.f The experience of this 
satisfaction from right adjustment, and of the pains conse- 
quent upon mal-adjustment, has been the immediate motive- 
power in effecting social and moral evolution. The higher 
organisms are doubtless susceptible of greater pain and 
suffering than the lower ; but this must be more than 
counterbalanced, on the whole, by an increase of satisfac- 
tions, or the life of the individual and the race would come 
to an end. The suffering to which conscious beings are- 
subjected is not, therefore, an essential quality of life ; it 
is the result of some interference with its spontaneous and 
perfect manifestation. Life itself, in its essential quality. 
is good. All organisms, consciously or unconsciously, seek 
instinctively or voluntarily for more abundant life, and find 
their health and satisfaction in its achievement. Conscious 
volition, in this particular, simply follows the path made 
for it by the inherited sum total of past involuntary and 
unconscious experiences. It testifies to the immanence in 
the organism of a universal biological law. 

It naturally follows that those actions which tend to 
adapt the organism to its environment, though they may at 
first be attended with pain, and demand effort or self-denial, 
and are perhaps initiated only by reason of the imperative 

♦Spencer's Principles of Psychology. 

t " Life" is defined, by Mr. Spencer as " the continuous adjustment of internal 
relations to external relations" (Principles of Psychology). This expression is 
synonymous with the one we have used — "the adaptation of the organism to 
the environment." Life is adjustment, or adaptation, involving a movement 
or process, tending toward a condition of harmony or equilibrium between the 
organism and the totality of its environing conditions. 



Evolution of Morals. 267 

necessity for self-sustenance or race-maintenance, yield 
greater and greater satisfactions as they become habitual 
and instinctive. It is entirely natural according to this 
principle, that altruistic actions, originally initiated from 
egoistic motives, should be continued, when they become 
habitual, from higher motives. The original selfish impulse 
of desire or fear may be wholly eliminated, and the action 
may be pursued without thought of ulterior recompense. 
The child at first shares its playthings with its little com- 
panions, perhaps, under the stress of paternal compulsion ; 
but it soon comes to receive pleasure from the perception 
and sympathetic appreciation of their pleasure : the gener- 
ous act brings its own reward. Thus habit, in adapting man to 
his social environment, revolutionizes his ethical point of 
view. 

Not only does it induce this change of conscious motive ; 
it also differentiates the sense of moral obligation from 
those peremptory selfish instincts in which it has its root, 
thus creating the imperative impulse of Duty. The " ought " 
of the Evolution philosophy having been evolved out of the 
struggle for a larger life, implies the obligation to strive 
for fulness of life in one's self and in the world at large.* 
For the service of Self, it substitutes the service of Human- 
ity. It is more than an impulse to seek one's own imme- 
diate or proximate advantage and happiness. Interpreted 
even in egoistic terms, it implies an obligation to seek for 
the perfection of self,| including the perfection of one's 
moral and spiritual nature ; and to seek it, if need be, there- 
fore, at the sacrifice of one's immediate personal comfort 
and happiness. Life is measured, ethically, not by length 
of years, not even by the present or proximate sum total of 
the individual activities ; but rather by the sum total of the 
individual' 's influence in promoting fulness of life in all sen- 
tient creatures — now living and yet to be. The conception 
of moral obligation presented by the new ethics thus accounts 
for the action of the world's sages, saviours and moral 
heroes — for that of men like Socrates, Jesus and the Buddha 
— as well as for that of the conventional well-disposed citi- 
zen of the well-ordered State ; for there are times when the 
clear vision of noble souls perceives that only by contempt 
for the conventional, by the overthrow of institutions which 
have become barriers in the path of human progress, can 

*Fiske's Cosmic Philosophy. t Maude's The Foundation of Ethics. 



268 Evolution of Morals. 

the perfection of the race be achieved. When such a con- 
viction is clearly held by a strong and well-balanced mind, 
it can do no otherwise than seek the perfection of its own 
manhood through intelligent and devoted service to the 
welfare of mankind. Not to follow the imperative mandate 
of duty, even if it lead to contumely and death, would para- 
lyze the life with a sense of ignoble shame. 

Such is the history, in brief, of the evolution of morals — 
such the facts which underlie the foundations of moral sci- 
ence. Throughout the ages since man emerged from the brute- 
egoism of his original estate, diverse human motives and 
activities have been pitted against one another in a struggle 
for existence similar to that which has gone on in the lower 
range of biological development. The same law has held 
good in moral evolution which justified the method of nature 
on the lower plane — the fittest in action has survived. 
Those motives, impulses, desires, which best fit man for the 
rational use of all his faculties, and which best serve the 
race in its struggle toward a condition of social equilibrium, 
have gradually emerged, and become not indeed actually 
triumphant over all lower impulses, but at least of gener- 
ally recognized authority among intelligent people. The 
law of conflict, which seemed fraught only with pain, de- 
struction, and the perpetuity of egoistic tendencies in the 
government of human conduct, blossoms at last with the 
noblest flowers of unselfish character. 

It now remains for us to consider the nature of the ethical 
system which logically results from the facts of moral evo- 
lution, and some of the objections which have been raised 
against it. As the principle of utility, in a high sense, has 
determined the selection or rejection of motives and activi- 
ties throughout the entire process of moral evolution, it 
naturally follows that the Science of Morals should be 
classed as a utilitarian system. That it differs radically, 
however, from the crude utilitarianism of the older schools 
is evident from our previous discussion, and will be still 
farther evident upon consideration. 

Moral Science treats of the conduct of man in his relations 
to other men and to society in general. The order of moral 
evolution, and the laws governing it, are registered in the- 
history and experience of the race. Its sanctions have been 
universally operative, alike upon the ethically wise and the 
ethically ignorant, thus educating all to a knowledge of the- 



Evolution of Morals. 269 

imperative nature of its demands. Its result is organized 
as conscience in the mind of the individual. Conscience, 
therefore, is the individual's inheritance of the moral expe- 
riences and tendencies of all past generations ; it is not 
merely the creation of the existing social status. Prevail- 
ing customs, ideas, and institutions may influence the form 
of its immediate manifestations, — they do not account for 
its fundamental character as an imperative obligation urging 
man to an ideal end. Conscience appears in the individual 
as an intuition ; but like all other intuitions it is the out- 
growth of inherited experiences. It is of variant force and 
reliability in different individuals, dependent upon circum- 
stances of organization and culture. In so far as it is 
actively existent, it urges man always to do the right, leav- 
ing his intellect, however, to determine what the concrete 
right is in any special emergency. It is not true, therefore, 
that conscience is an infallible guide, in the unqualified 
sense assumed by the transcendental moralist. The nature 
of actions as good or bad can only be determined by an ob- 
servation and estimation of their effects. Morality therefore 
involves an action of the intellect as well as of the feelings ; 
it holds man responsible for the intelligent investigation of 
the results of actions, as well as for the vague intention to 
do right. 

Moral Science asserts that the qualities of actions are not 
accidental or arbitrarily determined by the will of Deity. 
They are " necessary consequences of the constitution of 
things." * By the study, therefore, of the laws of life, and 
of human conduct as related thereto, we may ascertain what 
kinds of action necessarily extend the boundaries and satis- 
factions of life, in the individual and in the community, 
and what kinds produce a contrary effect. These deductions, 
when ascertained, are recognized as laws of conduct, and 
the educated conscience is impelled to conform to these 
laws irrespective of any direct estimation of resultant 
happiness or misery. Thus the crude utilitarianism of the 
older schools is superseded by the rational utilitarianism 
of the evolution philosophy. Obedience to the moral law 
becomes the object and incentive of the highest intelligence, 
in place of the empirical impulse of immediate utility or 
egoistic pleasure. 

Moral Science as thus described embodies the truths 

* Spencer's Data of Ethics. 



270 Evolution of Morals. 

while it discards the errors of conflicting ethical systems. 
It recognizes alike the intuitional and the experiential 
nature of conscience ; it is an intuition in the individual 
resulting from experience in the race. Conceiving of Deity 
as the Power immanent in all the processes of evolution, — 
as immediately manifested in the nature of things, — and of 
ethical endeavor as the action of human volition in the effort 
to achieve harmony with this evolutionary tendency in 
nature and society, it recognizes also an underlying truth in 
the conception that moral action is obedience to the divine 
will. The obedience, however, is not to a testamentary 
will of God, made known in a verbal revelation, but to his 
actual will, revealed in the instant operation of natural 
and universal laws. " Fulness of life " is only another term 
for that "perfection or excellence of nature" which yet 
another school of thinkers regards as the ultimate object of 
moral action. Rising above empirical utilitarianism, the 
conclusions of Moral Science harmonize with the conception 
that Virtue, not egoistic pleasure, should be the object of 
ethical endeavor ; yet it recognizes also that happiness is 
the natural concomitant of that perfection of life which all 
virtuous activities have in view, and is therefore in one 
sense the end, though it cannot be the immediate object of 
pursuit, in the perfect life.* 

Deducing its system from the actual facts involved in 
the evolution of conduct, Moral Science recognizes both an 
absolute ethic, adapted to the perfect man in an ideal state 
of society, and a relative ethic, applicable to all men in 
each successive stage of social evolution. In many of the 
affairs of life there is fortunately for us no conflict between 
these two standards of judgment. In the relations of the 
well-ordered family, for example, all natural individual 
activities should be promotive of reciprocal satisfactions 
which tend to the completion of each individual life. Mutual 
service should bring mutual reward and happiness. The 
subject of ethics, however, in its total scope, is a very com- 
plex one. It is easy to turn a syllogism ; it is not so easy, 
always, to decide what is right in the multifarious situations 
of life. Many of the problems of practical affairs are in- 
capable of solution by the application of the simple tests 
required by an ideal standard of perfect conduct. A recent 
writer in the Fortnightly Review has treated of " The Ethics 

* Spencer's Data of Ethics. 



Evolution of Morals. 271 

of Cannibalism " ; and it may be admitted that he has fairly 
demonstrated that this social custom is not so wholly 
divorced from ethical considerations as might at first appear. 
The system of slavery, which, as related to our modern 
civilization, was rightly denounced by John Wesley as " the 
sum of all villanies," was, in its inception, a beneficent sub- 
stitute for slaughter and cannibalism, and its adoption indi- 
cated an ethical advance on the part of its originators. In 
many of the situations of life as they arise in the course of 
social evolution, under the pressing exigencies of contem- 
porary custom, business competition, governmental regula- 
tion and popular prejudice, it must be recognized that the 
best that the conscientious individual can do is to choose 
that course of conduct which, under all the circumstances, 
seems likely to be productive of the fewest evil results, 
instead of that which is absolutely right, even if he is capa- 
ble of comprehending the absolute right. A man who, in 
the midst of a savage or barbarous community, in defiance 
of current social or religious customs, should attempt to 
live the ideal life of a perfect civilization, would doubtless 
quickly be eliminated from such a society by violent and 
tragical means, and thus effectively be estopped from influ- 
encing those around him to better ways of living. Much of 
our enforced civilization of savage races has been fatal in 
its effects upon the health and happiness of the vast major- 
ity, while it has failed to elevate the average morals of the 
survivors. This is likely to be the result whenever conven- 
tional education is forced upon a people in advance of their 
functional development. The Hawaian Islanders offer a 
fruitful and impressive example of the truth of this asser- 
tion, if such be needed. Even in our modern civilized com- 
munities he who attempts to live a life of ideal moral 
perfection will often "find himself in sufficiently dramatic 
situations." * He must be a very strong and well-balanced 
man who can materially aid society by violently and radi- 
cally opposing its conventional methods and tendencies. 
The gradual evolutionary processes of ethical culture are 
usually more effective in bringing about social reforms, than 
" running a-muck " against social evils with violent denun- 
ciation and abuse. 

The ultimate practical test of Moral Science in doubtful 
emergencies, when formulated, is nevertheless precisely 

*The phrase is " Christopher North's." 



272 Evolution of Morals. 

what it would be in an ideally perfect society : That course 
of conduct must be adopted which will promote the greatest 
pjossible development of life-giving energies, both in the indi- 
viduals immediately affected, and in society at large, including 
the life of posterity. Such action, wisely followed after a 
due consideration of all attendant circumstances, will always 
satisfy the demands of an enlightened conscience. It must 
be remembered, however, that the absolute standard of right 
should always be held in view ; and that no deviation from 
it is ever justifiable in one who is capable of apprehending 
such a standard, unless it clearly appears that any other 
course of action would diminish the sum total of life-giving 
activities in the world at large. 

Moral Science, as thus described, holds in just perspec- 
tive the claims of both altruism and egoism in their relation 
to conduct. The primary instinct of self-preservation 
which lies at the foundation of moral evolution, is ethically 
justified when pruned of undue selfishness, and held in 
proper adjustment and equilibrium with the general well- 
being. Man's first duty to society is to render himself an 
independent and self-supporting member thereof, and to 
qualify himself by the cultivation of his faculties for the 
intelligent and useful service of mankind. The exercise of 
all his natural functions and faculties, in due proportion, is 
to be regarded as a moral obligation, since by repeated 
neglect or disuse the organism is weakened, and thereby 
rendered less competent to add to the sum total of life-giving 
energies, both personal and social. For a like reason, all 
excesses are to be condemned and avoided — including ex- 
cesses of self-renunciation in altruistic service. Care of 
the body, the preservation of physical health, thus becomes 
a moral obligation. It cannot be doubted that in a more 
perfect state of society the confession of disease will become 
as shameful as the admission of moral delinquency. Even 
unavoidable invalidism, other than that which is the natural 
accompaniment of age, will be placed upon a par with in- 
herited and ineradicable tendencies to moral lapse, like 
kleptomania and dipsomania. 

Right thought, conscientious investigation of intellectual 
problems, is also enjoined by Moral Science. The moral 
man will cease to be an intellectual parasite, and form his 
own intelligent judgments on all the problems of thought. 
Thus only can the highest life be attained. The scope of 



Evolution of Morals. 273 

ethics is wonderfully broadened by the application of the 
tests required by evolutionary morals. Eight action is no 
mere concern of conventional morality, — an obedience to 
the " Thou shalt nots " of the formal code. It becomes a 
matter of positive, all-comprehensive and enduring obliga- 
tion, inspiring the mind to purity, activity and integrity of 
thought as well as of deed — to nobility of motive, intelli- 
gent and conscientious regard for the possible results of 
action, and a sublime self-consecration to the interests, 
welfare and happiness of all sentient creatures. The fulness 
of life which is the end of ethical endeavor being the result 
of conduct in its ultimate stage of evolution, there will be 
no conflict between the wisest egoistic and the wisest altru- 
istic endeavor in the perfect life of society, as governed by 
an ideal moral standard. In wisely seeking the perfection 
of self, we are seeking the welfare and happiness of others, 
and vice versa* The new ethics thus cultivates and justi- 
fies a manly self-respect instead of the abject self-abnegation 
demanded by the old theological dogma of total depravity. 
" Self-love," it affirms with Shakspeare, " is not so vile a 
sin as self-neglecting." This attitude is not so widely sepa- 
rated as may at first appear from the ethics of the Sermon 
on the Mount, for the obligations implied by the beatitudes 
and the Golden Eule also find their sanctions and equipoise 
in self-interest. 

The intuitive moralist finds an insuperable objection to 
the evolutionary theory of morals, in the fact that its sense 
of duty is derived. Duty, he says, is an original endow- 
ment of the human mind- — a primitive and imperative in- 
tuition. Kant, however, the noblest thinker of the tran- 
scendental school, admits that the moral imperative is merely 
formal ; it simply says we ought, without declaring what we 
ought to do. It tells us that duty exists, but it does not 
tell us what duty is in any given case. "The only objects 
of practical reason," says Kant, " are therefore those of 
good or evil ; but it depends upon experience to find what 
is good or evil."f An obligation empty of content is evi- 
dently no infallible guide to right action ; and it is difficult 
to see what advantage the intuitive moralist has over the 
evolutionist as to the strength of his ethical sanctions, since 
both theories admit that the sense of obligation is intuitive 
in the individual, and both derive the moral content from 

* Maude's The Foundation of Ethics, t Kant's Critique of Practical Reason. 



274 Evolution of Morula. 

the lessons of experience. The recognition of the derivative 
character of duty, however, as interpreted by legitimate 
inferences from the study of the evolution of morals, would 
appear to strengthen rather than to weaken its imperative 
nature, since it thus appears that the sense of obligation is 
derived from the essential nature of things — the very con- 
stitution of the universe. Duty is derived only as man and 
all his faculties are derived. It appears in the human mind 
as the culmination of the entire process of evolution. All 
living things, all worlds, the Infinite Power which is revealed 
in all phenomenal manifestations, have striven to build up 
this imperative impulse in the mind of man. It is the latest 
and finest product of evolutionary labor, and necessarily, 
therefore, a supreme obligation to him in whose mind it has 
developed, until its behests are completely organized in his 
being. Then obligation ceases, only to give place to pleas- 
urable instinct ; and right action becomes as natural as the 
blossoming of flowers or the silent, resistless operation of 
the law of gravity. To be consistent, the intuitionist is 
compelled to deny that spontaneous right-action, pleasurably 
anticipated, and unaccompanied by a sense of compulsion, 
possesses any moral value whatever. The advocates of this 
theory are so earnest in affirming that a sense of duty and 
of the difficulty of doing right are essential to morality, 
that one might naturally infer that they must be personally 
conscious of heinous moral guilt, and suffering therefor the 
pangs of remorse. They would doubtless resent the per- 
sonal inference, however, as energetically as does the 
sleek devotee of the revival meeting, who denounces him- 
self, in a Pickwickian sense, as the vilest of sinners. Moral 
spasms and paroxysms of self-condemnation illustrate not 
only an immature stage of moral development in the subject, 
but also an immature phase of thought concerning the 
nature and sanctions of morality. Kant's definition of 
Duty as "necessitation to an end which is unwillingly 
adopted," certainly justifies us in cherishing Spencer's hope 
that pleasurable spontaneity in right action will ultimately 
supersede the sense of obligation.* Happy and willing 
obedience to the moral law would certainly seem to indicate 
a higher condition of ethical health than the compulsory 
and unwilling performance of moral obligations ; and the 
self-respect implied in such obedience is ethically a nobler 

* Spencer's Ethics of Kant. See also, Data of Ethics. 



Evolution of Morals. 275 

and more helpful state of mind than remorseful self-depre- 
ciation. "Do not waste time in compunctions," said the 
Concord seer, in the spirit of the New Ethics. Longfellow's 
"Let the dead past bury its dead," phrases the same high 
thought : this is the nobler inspiration of evolutionary 
morals. 

Praise and blame are indeed justly apportioned to indi- 
viduals according to the degree of difficulty under which 
they pursue right courses of action ; but the moral law is 
ultimately concerned with something infinitely higher than 
the task of justly awarding praise and blame for individual 
actions. Its purpose is the development of the highest 
life, both in the individual and in the social organism. 
When it has achieved this result in the individual as far as 
it is possible, by his conversion to pleasurable and voluntary 
right action, shall it be said that it is no longer operative 
in his life ? Let it rather be recognized that therein it is 
completely operative. 

Another objection often raised against the evolutionary 
ethics, is that it fails to recognize the freedom of the will. 
In this freedom, it is said, resides the sole opportunity for 
moral action. In the light of the facts of moral develop- 
ment, the conception of uncaused volition in man is evidently 
untenable. This conception, indeed, has no logical founda- 
tion in theory, save as it is connected with some hypothesis 
of a pre-existent will or ego — and of this we have no evi- 
dence in nature, nor in the observed facts of a rational 
psychology. The names of eminent thinkers of the meta- 
physical school may indeed be marshalled in the support of 
this dogma — Bruno, Leibniz, Eosmini-Serbati, Kant, Lotze 
and others, as well as the Oriental sages of this and by-gone 
generations ; but it is a doctrine evidently manufactured to 
sustain certain metaphysical assumptions concerning the 
nature of the soul and conscience, rather than a conclusion 
deduced from the scientific examination of man's mental 
constitution, unbiased by metaphysical pre-judgments. It 
is contradicted by the unquestioned facts of heredity, and 
by all the accessible data of a rational psychology. Kant 
rests his doctrine of moral responsibility upon the assump- 
tion of a pre-existent will — thus making the individual 
man rather than his parents, ancestors or the circumstances 
of his environment responsible for his nature. He admits, 
however, that man is free to act only in accordance with 



276 Evolution of Morals. 

his nature. " All human actions," he says, " are determined, 
according to the order of Nature by the empirical character 
and the co-operating conditions." From a knowledge of 
these, he admits, "they might be foretold with certainty, 
and necessarily deduced." He thus practically recognizes 
the operation of cause and effect in human action. The 
conception of the will as an entity, apart from and superior 
to the mental faculties, has no foundation, however, in the 
observed phenomena of mind which constitute the data of 
mental and moral science. Moreover, as the sanctions of 
evolutionary ethics inhere in the nature of things, they 
operate on all minds, irrespective of their theoretical judg- 
ments. Hence, the importance of belief in the freedom of 
the will seems to be greatly over-estimated by its advocates. 
The will, as defined and recognized by the new ethics, is 
an inseparable element in all conscious adaptations of acts 
to ends. "Will, or volition," says Bain," "comprises all 
the actions of human beings, in so far as guided by feel- 
ings."* "Volition," says John Fiske, more tersely, "is 
the process whereby feeling initiates action. * * The will 
is not an entity, but a dynamic process." t It is therefore, 
as Dr. Eccles has pointed out, an element not only in human 
conduct, but in the conscious activities of all sentient 
creatures — even the lowest. Human volition, in all sane 
minds, is determined by rational and ascertainable motives ; 
and herein lie the chief means and incentives to man's 
moral regeneration. A new thought projected into the 
mind, a new point of view held up as a mirror in which 
man may regard the tendencies and results of his actions, 
may become the all-powerful motive leading to a revolution 
of conduct. All our educational systems, all wise penal and 
reformatory methods, are based upon the belief that normally 
constituted minds will inevitably respond to certain motives 
by corresponding and predicable lines of action. Nature 
herself, indeed, appears to have acted in accordance with 
this understanding, throughout the entire course of moral 
evolution ; and thus man has been led onward and upward 
out of brute-egoism toward the ideal of a perfect manhood. 
Man but endeavors, in the range of the moral activities, to 
substitute for the slow process of natural selection, the 
quicker appeal to intelligent selection by means of legisla- 
tive enactments, education, and volitional effort. In the 

* Bain's Moral Science. -fFiske's Cosmic Philosophy. 



Evolution of Morals. 277 

natural and causal sequence of motive and action, and the 
relation of motives to their logical antecedents in thought, 
we note the only possible conditions for improving man's 
moral nature. 

Is human conduct therefore necessitated ? Yes : but by 
the nature of man's own being — by no external force; and 
this nature is therefore largely, though not exclusively, of 
his own making. The motives which govern his action are 
a part of his essential being. He necessitates himself, which 
is only another way of saying that he acts as he freely wills 
to act. In obedience to law, in voluntary conformity to 
the nature of things, he finds the only possible reality and 
exercise of freedom. Having arrived at an intelligent con- 
ception of the laws of conduct, of the end and logical results 
of his voluntary actions, he is no mere automaton or machine 
played upon by external forces. He has developed a gen- 
uine, though limited autonomy, and may justly be held 
responsible for his moral conduct. 

Kant sees nothing but pure determination in the concep- 
tion of conduct as governed by motives. He compares it 
to the action of a balance and its weights. Professor Schur- 
man thus aptly replies to his argument : " Whoever reflects 
that a motive is merely an idea, and that an idea has no ex- 
istence apart from the subject that has it, must object to 
the comparison of a man and his motives to a balance and 
its weights. The former is merely an ideal, the latter a 
real duality. Man is nothing apart from his ideas ; but the 
weights and balance have each an independent existence. 
Thus, volition, or willing according to motives, is by no 
means a necessitation. And it was here that Kant failed 
to see the full significance of his fundamental notion, while 
contending for an empty shadow which was scarcely the 
ghost of a living freedom. If freedom be not found in our 
volition with motives and not without them, it dwells not 
with man, it is nowhere to be found." * Man's conduct 
being necessitated from within, not from without, under 
the law of motive, he has, if we mistake not, a real freedom 
of action, though it is something quite different from the 
uncaused volition which is assumed by the advocates of the 
doctrine that the will is a pre-existent entity. 

A fine reconciliation of intuitional with utilitarian ethics 
is discoverable in the perception of the identity in charac- 

* Schurman's Kantian Ethics, and the Ethics of Evolution. 



278 Evolution of Morals. 

ter of the moral law with all natural laws, and the logical 
inference that though discovered inductively and through 
experience, it is universal in its scope and operation, un- 
limited by social conventions or individual intelligence. As 
the law of gravity operated eternally before its discovery 
and definition by Newton, so the condition of things ex- 
pressed by the moral imperative has operated during the 
entire course of human history and biological evolution. 
The scientific law of conduct is found to be the statement 
of a fundamental and a priori condition of the highest 
development of individual character and social activities. 
The impulse to right action appears in truth as a "categori- 
cal imperative," not alone in the consciousness of man, but 
in the constitution of the universe — operating in man to 
create the individual conscience, and everywhere revealing 
itself as the condition precedent to all social and moral ad- 
vancement, on which individual character and harmonious 
communities depend. " The rule of right, the symmetries 
of character, the requirements of perfection, are no provin- 
cialisms of this planet : they are. known among the stars ; 
they reign beyond Orion and the Southern Cross ; they are 
wherever the Universal Spirit is; and no subject-mind, 
though it fly on one track forever, can escape beyond their 
bounds." * 

As all moral acts are life-promoting acts, it is the essen- 
tial nature of immorality to be destructive — suicidal. The 
penalty of evil conduct is the instant and immediate atrophy 
of character ; if persisted in, it is both moral and physical 
death. Salvation, therefore, is rationally identical with 
character-building; but character means more than mere 
goodness ; it means fulness of life, — the cultivation of 
every manly and womanly faculty, — the devotion of the 
life to human welfare. 

Evolutionary ethics respects the individual. It makes 
perfection of individual character the supreme end, seeing 
that thus only can society be perfected. Society is indeed 
regarded as an organism, t but the individual is to society 



* Martineau's A Study of Religion. 

t The social organism differs from the lower forms of organic life in an impor- 
tant particular : — in the latter, the cell, or unit, appears to exist for the sake of 
the organism ; while in the former, the organism appears to exist for the sake 
of the individual or unit. In all organisms, however, the perfection of cell-life 
appears to go along with the perfection of the organic structure. The resem- 
blances between social and organic growth seem to be sufficiently striking to 
justify the use of the term " social organism." 



Evolution of Morals. 279 

what the cell is to vital tissue : the more perfect the cell, 
the healthier is the tissue. Obliterate the individuality of 
the cell, and all high organization is impossible. The com- 
munistic idea would subordinate the individual to society, 
— to humanity in general. It would sacrifice the living 
man to an abstraction. The ultimate tendency of this ideal 
is toward the obliteration of individuality- — the establish- 
ment of homogeneity of character and intellect, the fossil- 
ization of social instincts and activities through individual 
conformity and inactivity, thus defeating its avowed end 
and aim. This tendency is opposed to the entire trend of 
evolution, which constantly tends to differentiation, hetero- 
geneity, individualism, progress. Whenever the communis- 
tic ideal becomes dominant, society is arrested in its develop- 
ment or hastens to decay. Communism is the sure precursor 
of social disintegration and death ; it is a reversion to the 
earliest social status of uncivilized man. After communism, 
by a natural reaction, conies anarchy ; and anarchy lived 
out is social dissolution. This result can only be prevented 
by respect for the rights and personality of the individual, 
and respect by the individual for the laws of conduct as 
determined by the science of morals. Voluntary co-opera- 
tion instead of legislative communism constitutes the social 
ideal prophetically outlined by the study of the principles 
underlying the entire process of ethical and social evolution. 
The liberation of the individual ■ — his increasing freedom 
to secure the satisfactions consequent upon the natural and 
harmonious use of all his faculties — proceeds pari passu 
with an increasing dependence on society in general. Thus 
society integrates by a natural process of growth, forming 
a real brotherhood of consent, instead of a militant organi- 
zation, consolidated by external coercion. The condition 
of society involved in this ideal is one in which each indi- 
vidual shall have full opportunity for the development of 
his whole nature, and to which each shall freely contribute 
his noblest and most conscientious service. 

Among the hills of old Berkshire, there is a noble birch 
tree, gigantic in trunk and limb, and abundant in foliage, 
which towers above its neighboring companions, but grows, 
apparently, out of an immense granite bowlder which was 
deposited centuries ago, where it now rests, by the action of 
a mighty glacier whose resistless energy had borne it from 
some far-away mountain summit. Beneath the rock the 



280 Evolution of Morals. 

earliest tiny rootlets of the tree found soil and nourishment : 
its first tender shoot sprung up into some small crevice in 
the great bowlder above them. Here, one might think, it 
would have paused, submitting to the adamantine pressure, 
either crushed utterly to the earth, or dwarfed and deformed 
by its unyielding environment. But it had the irresistable 
evolutionary forces of Nature behind it ; the sunlight above 
wooed it from its prison-house — it pushed upward toward 
the light. Gradually the little crevice in the rock was 
widened, the great bowlder was split asunder as by the 
hammer of Thor, — the noble tree, scarcely distorted by the 
struggle, protected from destructive storms by its conquered 
enemy, grew with the years, and spread abroad on every 
side its leafy beauty and the blessing of its grateful shade. 
So conscience — the moral sense — a little germ at first, 
inclosed in the hard shell of the natural instincts, struggling 
against the mighty bowlder of animalism, has at last split 
the obstacle in twain, and emerged to bless the world and 
justify the method which has given it birth. And the In- 
finite Energy, one in the misty nebula and the glowing sun, 
in rock and tree and animal, and in the mind and conscience 
of man, " saw everything that it had made, and behold, it 
was very good." 



Evolution of Morals. 281 



ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 

Pkofessob Thomas Davidson: — 

The fact that I was invited to open this discussion with the full 
knowledge that the frankest dissent might be expected of me, in- 
dicates a high degree of moral evolution on the part of the man- 
agers of this course of lectures. The limited time, however, places 
me at a disadvantage, speaking as I do to an audience made up of 
those who agree with the able lecture of Dr. Janes. I object not 
so much to the observed facts of Evolution, as to its theory about 
them. I object to the presupposition that there is no knowledge 
outside of experience. Man's aim, according to the evolution 
philosophy, is to serve an abstract humanity, without any reward 
therefor. Evolution, the lecturer declares, is a tendency which 
has been observed in Nature — a purposeful tendency — a tendency 
to "fulness of life." The lecturer, however, has failed to de- 
fine what life is. The assumption that there is no knowledge 
outside of experience is not due to evolutionary thought, but to a 
negation of thought. The effort to erect a philosophy on this 
basis is due to a reactionary impulse in thought which must be 
short lived. Evolutionists declare that there are three stages in 
the development of thought, the theologic, the metaphysical and 
the scientific. One would think that the metaphysical stage, 
being so much in advance of the theological, would be treated with 
respect, but on the contrary it is treated with contempt and abuse. 
John Stuart Mill, who was a devoted adherent of this philosophy, 
was one of a class whom we may call "metaphysical-phobists." 
Now, metaphysics is in bad repute principally on account of the 
shallowness of thought and narrowness of reading of these meta- 
physical-phobists who are now so popular. Evolutionists know 
nothing of metaphysics. What do they know of Aristotle, of the 
Neo-Platonists, of Thomas Aquinas ? We do not get all our own 
knowledge from experience. The assertion that we know nothing 
of the spiritual which is not revealed in experience is due to pure 
prejudice. Dr. Janes indeed speaks of a "Universal Spirit" with 
a purpose, and this is essentially a theological conception. And 
this "fulness of life," — what does it mean? Does it mean the 
maintenance of all life — the life of "all sentient creatures," or of 



282 Evolution of Morals. 

man only ? What are we to do with the gnats and mosquitoes, for 
instance ? "Fulness of life" is a very vague phrase for a summum 
bonum. In mere mechanism there is no tendency either to good 
or evil. Then, according to this philosophy, the moment this ten- 
dency gets where it can be of use, the moment it gets into life, it 
errs. "Fulness of life" is defined as "subjective satisfaction." 
But animals have no morality, yet they seek this satisfaction. 
Carnivorous animals destroy "fulness of life" in seeking this sat- 
isfaction. Only the satisfaction of intelligence, without reference 
to pleasure, shows the moral. Evolution puts the cart before the 
horse. The moral sense inherent in the constitution of man has 
developed morality, not physical changes and social necessities. 
If environment produces morality, why are not animals moral ? 
It is the fundamental moral faculty that is the cause of moral 
development. , 

Bev. John W. Chadwick: — 

I am surprised at Professor Davidson's torrent of negation. I 
had hoped that he would give some reasons for the faith that is 
in him. I will not speak at length in reply to his statements, from 
which I dissent, preferring to give as much time as possible to Dr. 
Janes. 

Mr. Thomas Gardner: — 

I find myself thoroughly in accord with Dr. Janes in his treat- 
ment of this question. I cannot understand how an intelligent 
man can ascribe the rejection of the metaphysical philosophy, by 
leading scientific men, to their ignorance of the literature of that 
school of thought. Certainly Spencer and Huxley, and others of 
the Evolution school, have shown abundant knowledge of meta- 
physics. If I were to criticiseDr.Janes's able paper, it would be 
in that he has omitted the admiration of the heroic and the love 
of the beautiful in considering the influences which led to the 
evolution of morals. These influences were of great importance,, 
it appears to me. 

Mr. Nelson J. Gates: — 

I regret that Professor Davidson made no definite affirmations 
in expressing his dissent from Dr. Janes' s paper. Evolution holds 
that morals are developed from within, from the very constitution 
of things. But all ethical theories must be tested by experience. 
The theory of the Sermon on the Mount was evolved from a con- 
sideration of the static relations of human society, but it has been 



Evolution of Morals. 283 

rejected by experience. Take, for example, the command, "Who- 
soever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other 
also." We all agree in rejecting such a rule as impracticable. 

Professor P. H. van dee Weyde: — 

Professor Davidson has said that evolutionists are ignorant of 
metaphysics, but it is my experience that metaphysicians are all 
ignorant of the simplest principles of physics. Now it seems to 
me that metaphysics must be based on physics. The material 
world should be the first subject of study, but this is neglected by 
metaphysicians, who are far more open to the charge of ignorance 
of physics than are the scientists to the charge of want of knowl- 
edge of metaphysics. 

Ds. Robert G. Eccles: — 

Professor Davidson declares that evolutionists have metaphysi- 
cal-phobia; but he has evidently come in contact with Comteists 
rather than with Spencerians. Evolution has no contempt for 
metaphysics. On the contrary, it admits a measure of truth in 
all systems of thought, and desires to harmonize the truths of 
varying systems into a synthetic philosophy. Professor Davidson 
cannot get back of phenomena, nor can any metaphysician, however 
boldly he may proclaim his ability to do so. The "fulness of 
life," which he criticises, means adjustment; it means the perfec- 
tion or correspondence between inner relations and outer relations, 
between organization and environment. 

Dr. Janes: — 

I regard it as a high compliment to be criticised by Professor 
Davidson, one of the ablest metaphysicians, without doubt, in 
this country. And if his criticism has taken the form, mainly, of 
unverified assertion and barren negation, its weakness is a defect 
in the method of metaphysics, not in the man. Evolution, as Dr. 
Eccles has said, recognizes that all systems of thought contain 
some truth, and explains also why this must be so. The human 
mind can but reflect, in some degree, the truth of that Universe 
out of which it has been evolved. Metaphysical assumption, 
however, should be verified by experiential tests. Since all thought 
is a part of experience, I confess I am unable to see how we can 
have any extra-experiential knowledge. It seems to me that my 
■critic descended from his usual high plane of thought in raising 
the questions about gnats, mosquitoes and carnivorous animals. 
I think the principle which I laid down is clear to all unprejudiced 



284 Evolution of Morals. 

minds: we are bound to preserve and sustain life in all creatures 
which do not interfere with or detract from fulness of life in the 
totality of things- — taking into account, of course, the quality of 
life as judged by an evolutionary standard. This law makes it 
our duty to destroy those creatures which impede human advance- 
ment, as it is our duty to exercise protection and kindness toward 
our poor relations of the animal world, who are helpers of man- 
kind. Animals, indeed, are not moral, as I have declared. Neither 
was primitive man. But animals are on the road toward the 
moral. The moral is but man's self-conscious recognition of laws 
that reach all the way down, through the brute to inanimate 
nature. I fail to see that the moral sense is in any way discredited 
by being explained, as the intuitionalists assume. The evolutionary 
sanctions of morality seem to me quite as imperative as those of 
the metaphysicians. 



PROOFS OF EVOLUTION 



BY 

NELSON C. PAKSHALL 



COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED 
IN CONNECTION WITH ESSAY XII. 

Darwin's Origin of Species ; Haeckel's History of Creation, and 
Evolution of Man ; Spencer's Bio logy ; Fiske's Cosmic Philosophy 
and Excursions of an Evolutionist ; Huxley's Letters on Evolution 
and Critiques and Addresses ; Romanes' Scientific Evidences of 
Organic Evolution ; Wallace- and Dyer's The Distribution of Life ; 
Schmidt's Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism; Cazelle's Outlineof 
the Evolution Philosophy; Professor Morse's Presidential Address 
before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 
1887. 



PROOFS OF EVOLUTION. 



Emerson says : " Beware when the great God lets loose 
a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk." This 
laconic saying has been more than verified within the last 
thirty years. The thinkers have "been holding high carnival ; 
— and all about a little protoplasmic cell that none of them 
could see with the naked eye. 

Two great questions have always been before the world : 
one, as to the beginning of all things ; the other, as to the 
end of all things. Concerning these two problems, many 
sacred books have been written, from which a dozen great 
religious systems have sprung, all setting forth, more or less 
minutely, theories of the genesis of mind and matter. The 
explanations thus given, though crude and barbarous in many 
of their features, have been generally accepted, and the races 
of men have shaped their earthly careers in accordance there- 
with. Now and then a splendid soul arose and denied the 
truth of these assumed revelations ; but he rarely lived to 
repeat the denial. 

For ages men were content merely to know how to utilize 
the simplest forces of nature, to learn how to do the common- 
est things, and to join in communities for pleasure and pro- 
tection. They thought all things were made out of hand by 
a Supreme Architect who directed momentarily and minutely 
all human affairs. Fear and wonder made all their gods, and 
love and hope supplied them with the beautiful belief in 
immortality. 

Although the martyrs of truth fell one by one, each left a 
germinal thought behind. Only within the present genera- 
tion has it become safe and reputable to think. Hardly is 
this even now the exact truth; for the "Descent of Man" 
was at first hailed with good natured laughter and gentle 
derision; it was a good drawing-room joke at the expense 
of the monkey tribe. Even at the present moment, the vast 
majority of the people smile broadly whenever the subject 

* Copyright, 1889, by The New Ideal Publishing Co. 



288 Proofs of Evolution. 

of man's evolutionary origin is seriously mentioned. Com- 
paratively few as yet accept all that is implied in the doc- 
trine of Evolution. Nevertheless, it is bound up in one 
way or other with nearly every branch of human knowledge. 
The word is in every mouth. The fact connects itself 
with every known phenomenon. The greatest foe to the 
development theory has naturally been the church; because 
if Evolution is true, theology must be reconstructed in accord- 
ance with the principle of the supremacy of law and the 
impossibility of its violation by the intrusion of miracle. 
Not until there are more Scientific and Ethical Associa- 
tions, and not until schools and colleges teach the doctrine 
of Evolution, will it become imbedded in the thought and 
life of the masses. 

It may be, and often has been, asked, " Of what use is 
all this knowledge ? What is the practical benefit of be- 
lieving that man began life as a Moneron, and by strict at- 
tention to business has worked himself up to his present 
high estate — ' the paragon of animals ' ? " In the first place, 
all this is worth knowing for truth's own sake, since every 
truth contains the germ of good, and wherever it leads, all 
may safely follow. But the practical benefit which the 
knowledge of Evolution conveys, influences man in all rela- 
tions of life, as an individual and as a member of society. 
First of all, it teaches him the great lesson of reliance 
upon law — that all things are the result of growth and de- 
velopment ; that the present is the child of the past, the 
simple the germ of the complex. It teaches the impossi- 
bility of the fortuitous and the miraculous, — that if we ex- 
pect effects, we must set in motion adequate causes ; that to 
live wisely and well, we must adjust ourselves to the- 
natural and rational. 

While it does not take away one rational hope, Evolution 
sweeps into oblivion all the childish fables of the past; it 
points to a new heaven and a new earth ; it bids us awake 
from our pretty dream of the supernatural, and work in, 
with and through Nature, if we would make the wilderness 
of woe and wrong to blossom as the rose. It has unified 
all science and given learning a new force and meaning. 
It has added vastly to the sum of knoAvledge, and to the- 
aggregate of human happiness. 

In all its branches and bearings, it directly tends to enlarge 
and intensify human love and sympathy, and so stimulates 



Proofs of Evolution. 289 

the forces that lead to industry and thrift, and on to the 
highest plane of moral well-being. 

It teaches the principles of adjustment and harmony ; it 
bids us always to take thought for the morrow, and proclaims 
that love and labor united constitute the " divinity that 
shapes our ends." It will make the world more generous, 
kind, and charitable ; more patient, brave and true ; more 
humble, gentle, and unselfish; more noble, virtuous and 
patriotic. It will do all this because it asserts the great 
law of mutual duty. Evolution affirms the survival of the 
fittest. It prophesies even better things to come, than those 
which we now know. It points toward an ideal of perfec- 
tion. Its flower and fruitage in life is moral grandeur. 

Admitting its scope and possibilities, as thus portrayed, 
we are now at the threshold of the vital question, " Is Evo- 
lution true ? " Eor nothing false can be a permanent good. 
This question must be answered briefly and imperfectly; 
for an hour gives time barely to mention the various phases 
of the great theme. We are compelled to take a hasty view 
of the broad field, touching only the mountain peaks in the 
line of proof which establishes the theory of Evolution. 

What is Evolution ? A late writer has tersely defined it 
as follows : " Evolution is continuous, progressive change, 
according to certain laws, and by means of resident forces." 
Evolution is simply growth and change, governed by fixed 
laws. Its corner stone is continuity. 

The Essayists who have preceded me have explained to 
you Solar and Planetary Evolution, as also the Evolution of 
the Earth as a whole, of Vegetal and Animal Life, of Mind, 
of Man, of Society, Theology and Morals. It is in the field 
of Biology, however, that the proofs of Evolution are most 
abundant and conclusive. To this line of proof I shall 
mainly confine my attention. But before proceeding to 
details, it may be well to point out the 

FOUR GREAT FACTORS OF EVOLUTION, 

on which the entire theory rests. These are (1) The influ- 
ence of Environment ; (2) The increased use or disuse of 
organs ; (3) Natural Selection, or Survival of the Fittest ; 
and (4) Sexual Selection. The two former are accredited 
to Lamarck and others, but the two latter are wholly Dar- 
winian ; and running through all is the potent influence of 
heredity. 



290 Proofs of Evolution. 

A change in environment effects a corresponding change 
in functional activities, which leads to structural modifica- 
tion. Common observation and experience show us the 
effect of the use or disuse of an organ or part. This is 
likewise observable in determining the greater or less acute- 
ness and activity of all the senses. An organ lying dormant 
during many generations will gradually atrophy, and appear 
as a rudiment, finally vanishing altogether. Fishes and 
animals dwelling in underground caves into which no light 
enters, are sightless, as they have no use for eyes. They 
have lost them by disuse. The wonderful development of 
the gymnast and athlete is achieved by intensified use of 
the muscular system. If use or disuse is continued from 
generation to generation, heredity will transmit the result. 

Natural Selection, or Survival of the Fittest, grows out 
of the struggle for self-preservation. It is based on the 
law of hunger. It develops strength, cunning, or agility. 
It is an enemy to the weak and poorly conditioned. We see 
this principle exemplified every day in the struggle for su- 
premacy among individuals, communities, nations, and races. 
The strongest and best-favored survive ; the weakest perish. 

Sexual Selection is not concerned with hunger, but with 
beauty and the desire for offspring. As well stated by 
Prof. LeConte, " In Natural Selection there is a struggle 
of all for food, or means of living. In Sexual Selection 
there is a struggle among the males for the possession of 
the females and the means of procreation. The one is re- 
lated to the nutritive appetite, the other, to the sexual 
appetite." 

In animal life, Natural Selection most obtains among 
mammals ; sexual selection is more predominant among 
birds, those having the most beautiful plumage, or sweetest 
songs, winning the choicest mates. The former fight for 
existence ; the latter, like the warriors bold of the Middle 
Ages, battle for love. This warfare is in the world to-day 
wherever there are life and movement. These principles 
of evolution are still everywhere operating. Heredity 
preserves these jewels of descent, without which we would 
go back to "chaos and old night." 

PROOFS FROM GEOLOGY. 

Among the strongest proofs of Universal development, 
are those drawn from geological study. The earth has en- 



Proofs of Evolution. 291 

tombed all organic forms that have ever lived, and awaits 
the inevitable hour to receive all that live and breathe 
to-day. The process which everywhere goes on is one of 
evolution and revolution. Every disappearance is followed 
by a new form, readjusted upon a higher plane. The Earth 
is the Great Stone Book, giving us, as we turn the strata- 
leaves, illuminated pictures in bas-relief of the life-forms 
of past ages. What a Revelation ! written by the finger 
of Time on the rock of Ages, and by the ink of Death. 
Nothing can falsify the record. It is immutable, and ante- 
dates by millions of years the printed books of man, which 
assume, with much pomp and circumstance, to tell us all 
about the beginnings of things. 

Geology finds in the lower strata of rocks, just what we 
might expect to see if evolution is true : First, only the 
lowest forms of animal life, and sea-weeds. Then, through 
later and later deposits, successively appear remains of 
fishes, reptiles, mammals, and finally man, together with 
all the varying forms of plant-life appropriate to the suc- 
cessive periods. Nor is this all. In many cases, interme- 
diate forms between species have been found, — the " Missing 
Links " so often inquired for by the opponents of Evolution. 
Why all the generalized types are not found, is manifestly 
owing to the imperfection of the geological record, induced 
by the devastations of time ; such as the action of heat and 
cold, and the convulsions of nature. Change is manifested 
everywhere, stability nowhere, except in the laws of univer- 
sal causation. Form and substance are but puppets in the 
hands of one great master, Time. 

Astronomy and Geology ! twin liberators of the human 
mind, — one taught Infinite Space, the other Infinite Time. 
Before their birth was mental chaos. The popular theory 
of the heavens and earth was essentially mythological, like 
those of Greece and Borne, but shorn of all their wondrous 
beauty and refinement. Astronomy caught from dancing 
globes their laws of sustentation. Geology wrung from 
stubborn earth the jewels of her treasure-house. 

PROOFS FROM MORPHOLOGY. 

Convincing proofs of the truth of evolution are found in 
the homologies of animal structure. It may be well to 
distinguish this word, Homology, from Analogy, which 
refers to organs similar in form or function, but differing 



292 Proofs of Evolution. 

in origin, while Homology relates to those parts or organs 
which, however dissimilar in office, were derived from one 
and the same part, modified and readjusted by use. For 
example, the wing of a bird and the wing of a butterfly are 
analogous, since they are both used for flying; but they 
are not homologous, for they had not a common origin. But 
the wing of a bird, the fore-paw of a reptile or mammal, and 
the arm of a man, are homologous, since they have the same 
general structure, modified for different uses. Analogous 
parts look alike, but are not alike ; while homologous parts 
may have little or no resemblance, but are in fact the same 
parts in disguise. 

Morphology, or the science which describes the ideal 
forms or parts of organs, — the so-called structural "types " 
in living organisms, — runs throughout the entire animal 
and vegetable kingdoms. The structural evolution of one 
mammal is a type of the structural development of all. We 
will therefore select the horse, as at once the most beauti- 
ful and useful, needing only the gift of language to make 
him human. The beautiful form, color, size and structure 
of this animal were not fashioned at once, but have come to 
their present perfection through small and gradual changes 
extending back through vast periods of time. It has taken 
Nature ages and ages to make a horse, and she isn't done 
with him yet or he wouldn't balk and shy. The stock- 
breeders have joined hands with Nature and are rapidly 
improving his beauty, speed, and strength, while heredity 
is silently keeping the score. 

From Geological discoveries we know that the horse 
came from a five-toed ancestor. In Europe, India and Amer- 
ica he has been traced as far back as the early Eocene 
period, where he appeared no larger than a common fox. 
He then had three toes behind and four in front, with the 
rudiment of a fifth. Later on, we find him increased to 
the size of a sheep, but minus the rudimentary toe. The 
next advance was to a three-toed animal all around, about 
the size of a yearling colt, with the rudiment of a fourth 
toe on each foot. This stage of his development was fol- 
lowed by a shortening up of the side toes, while the middle 
toe grew broader and stronger. Finally, in the Quarternary 
period, we have the modern horse as we see him to-day, — 
the side-splints yet remaining, as rudiments, to tell of his 
long line of descent. 



Proofs of Evolution. 293 

What is true of the toes of the horse applies as well to 
the development of other parts of his structure. The prin- 
ciple applies not only to him, but to all living things. 
Descent with modification is a universal law. By the 
necessity of continually varying his modes of life, the 
horse has advanced from a useless little plantigrade quad- 
ruped to the position of the greatest help-mate of man, 
bearing patiently his many burdens and contributing in no 
small degree to his pleasure. But Evolution, which fash- 
ioned the horse and made him man's burden-bearer, is also 
raising up friendly inventors to emancipate him from some 
of his heavy toil. 

All the organs, as well as all the parts of the skeletons 
of all animals, have undergone slow and gradual changes, 
from the simplest beginnings up to their present complex 
state. New and ever-changing environments have brought 
corresponding modification of the organs or parts. Those 
no longer needful, shrunk to rudiments, finally disappeared 
altogether. Those needful and used were strengthened 
along their several lines of growth, until we have to-day all 
the wonders of form and function. 

Nature never begins her work de novo, for her adaptive 
genius is so great that she can transform the old into the 
new. When she wanted to make a landsman of a fish, she 
did not give him a new pair of legs at once, but left him to 
utilize his fins for that purpose as best he could. Of course, 
he made bad work of it at first ; but as he was left in the 
hard grip of necessity it was Hobson's choice. As he was 
often left on shallow, muddy shores by receding tides, he 
began to work his fins more vigorously, until finally, after 
many generations, in spite of a round of fatal failures, 
some of his kind succeeded in adapting their fins to this 
new use. The mud-fish of India, the Brazilian doras, and 
certain catfish of tropical America, take journeys of con- 
siderable length across the dry land in this way. Thus the 
swim-bladders of certain of the early fishes gradually devel- 
oped into lungs, the gill-arches into ears ; the head enlarged ; 
the circulation increased ; a warmer current filled the veins ; 
the tail-fin, not having much to do, dwindled to an orna- 
mental appendage, — and then and there a quadruped was 
born. 

Again, when Nature wanted a bird, she didn't make one 
out of raw material, as we are told, full-winged to soar 



294 Proofs of Evolution. 

away, but " worked over" the old fabric, just as thrifty 
housewives do, and do so wondrously well. Therefore, if 
wings are needed, the fore-limbs must go — they must be 
transformed into wings. Ages pass on ; the earth is filled 
with birds, beasts, and creeping things, but the quadruped 
is king. He has grown to enormous size and strength, and 
appears in almost endless varieties. The struggle for ex- 
istence has preserved the strongest, the most cunning, and 
those most highly skilled in the art of food-getting. The 
fierce warfare through which all living creatures have- 
passed, would naturally sharpen all the senses, and stimu- 
late, little by little, the power to observe and discriminate 
as to friend and foe, and as to foods, and favoring localities. 
This would induce some sort of reflection, and implant in 
the mind at least a nebulous train of reason and ordered 
thought. This would give the brain more and better work 
to do, and the doing would increase its size, quality, and 
convolutions. 

Why should advance stop at this point ? Why should 
not the same progressive change and upward tendency still 
go on ? Is the change from the mute little fish to a roar- 
ing Saurian less marvelous than the advance from highest 
mammal then existing to the earliest savage man, without 
speech, or language, and feeding on whatever prey the 
forest offered, including his own kind ? Doubtless man 
lived thousands of years before he acquired what we would 
now call language. Nevertheless, his earliest cries and 
noises were the beginnings of connected speech ; though no 
more intelligible than the chattering of apes. 

If we could go back to this lowest conceivable savage, 
what should we find ? Probably this : The anthropoid ape 
and the man-animal not quite out of sight of each other, 
but evolving on divergent roads from a common ancestor. 
If we could have stood near the diverging point, it would 
have been difficult to tell which had the potency of the 
dominant animal who rules the world to-clay. 

Most people who try to reason about the matter, make 
the mistake of attempting to bridge the chasm at once 
from Shakspeare to a shrimp ; and they say the difference 
is so enormous that Evolution cannot be true. But the 
thoughtful student goes back step by step, age by age, until 
he stands side by side with a creature half upright and 
howling, with all the ferocious instincts of a brute, but yet 



Proofs of Evolution. 295 

man-like in form and function, his language a jumble of 
incoherent noises, his moral sense yet undeveloped, killing 
and eating all he could overpower. From this field of vision, 
we can see little difference between our potential man and 
his fellows of the forest. 

Some will ask, and do ask : "At just what point and 
under what circumstances, did the direct line of man begin ? " 
And, " If it occurred once, why may it not occur again in 
the myriads of life-forms continually appearing upon the 
earth ? " To the first query the answer must be, there is 
no such point. Evolution is but a shading and a becoming. 
But there were certainly circumstances which led to the line 
of man, and these are not hard to imagine with the factors 
of evolution in view, and highly favoring conditions super- 
added. 

Let it be remembered that a rugged environment neces- 
sitating marked changes through the use or disuse of organs, 
together with the ever-continuing struggle for existence, 
perpetuating the strongest and best under the law of hered- 
ity, are the great forces in Morphological development. 

Once more, let us go back to the common ancestors of 
Man and the Anthropoid, and watch these primitive chil- 
dren as they start out together, some in one direction, some 
in another, their dispersion extending over broad territories 
during thousands of years, until at last they find themselves 
in utterly dissimilar environments ; the one condition un- 
favorable, the other highly favorable to progressive develop- 
ment. Let us suppose the favored ones found themselves 
in the midst of circumstances not requiring tree-climbing, 
either for food or for safety. Naturally, they would begin 
to use their fore-paws for food-gathering, and for throwing 
missiles at enemies. This habit would gradually throw the 
weight of the body more and more on the back-feet, leaving 
the arms and upper part of the body free for the various 
actions required. In time, adaptive changes would occur 
in the direction of an upright and flexible spine, and greater 
utility in the use of the arms. These changes, slight from 
generation to generation, in the aggregate would give us the 
hand of man, "which supplies all instruments, and gives 
him universal dominion." As Darwin remarks, "It accords 
with the principle of the division of physiological labor, 
which prevails throughout the animal kingdom, that, as the 
hands become perfected for prehension, the feet should 



296 Proofs of Evolution. 

have become perfected for support and locomotion." As 
these early man-animals went in herds and could utter cries, 
it is probable they soon learned to warn one another of the 
approach of danger, and also to express to one another their 
feelings and desires, which was doubtless the beginning of 
human speech. 

There are those who, in the pride of intellect and reason, 
reject with contempt such a lowly origin. They prefer 
descent from disgraced perfection, rather than a steady 
ascent through all the lower forms. They accept the belief 
that their bodies were made out of hand, from a lump of 
local dust, and that they are to this hour undergoing a 
penalty of pain and labor for a sin committed by a very 
distant relative, rather than believe in ascending excellence 
from the very first. In short, they would rather be fallen 
angels than risen men. 

On this point Mr. Darwin speaks as follows : " Unless 
we wilfully close our eyes, we may with our present knowl- 
edge, approximately recognize our parentage ; nor need we 
be ashamed of it. The most humble organism is something 
higher than the inorganic dust under our feet ; and no one 
with an unbiased mind can study any living creature, how- 
ever humble, without being struck with enthusiasm at its 
marvelous structure and properties." Finally, it may be 
said that man is a product of all the ages, a summary of 
all evolutionary efforts, an epitome of all preceding life ; he 
is literally " made up of a little of every creature's best," — 
the crown and glory of cosmic energy. 

PROOFS FROM EMBRYOLOGY. 

Perhaps the most striking evidence of the truth of Evo- 
lution is found in the study of Embryology, which is the 
science of the embryonic cell. Three great stages of growth 
may here be noted, the cell, the individual, and the tribe. 
That all organic life has been evolved from primordial germ- 
cells during countless ages, is now the firm position of 
Science. Even the method and laws of growth have been 
clearly outlined. The microscopic germ-cell, when first 
stirred by the energy of life, subdivides, producing two 
primary germ -layers, — by fission again developing four 
secondary germ-layers, and so on. These neAv cells do not 
entirely separate, but remain in contact. From the contin- 
ual aggregation of cell-forms, all the organs and parts of 



Proofs of Evolution. 297 

the body are developed. When an egg is formed by a mul- 
tiplicity of cells, it separates into three distinct layers, 
called the ecto-blast, the endo-blast, and the meso-blast, 
from which are developed by differentiation the three great 
life-centres, namely, the nervous system, the nutritive sys- 
tem, and the blood system ; and from these follow the mul- 
titudinous branchings to the highest stage of differentiation 
in the ontogenic series. Tracing any one of these groups, 
as the nervous system, we find it differentiates once more, 
forming the cerebro-spinal and ganglionic systems, each 
having different functions. The cerebro-spinal again differ- 
entiates into two systems, the voluntary and reflex, — these 
still again branching out into sensory and motor centres 
and fibres. The sensory -fibres branch out into the five 
senses with their separate functions. Take any one of the 
senses, as touch, and we observe that the nerve-fibres are 
not all alike. Some are sensitive to heat and cold; others 
to pressure. The nutritive and blood systems have, like- 
wise, their special lines of differentiation, culminating in 
all the different organs, parts and functions of the animal 
body. And this is the process of every life and every 
birth. 

One of the most startling as well as one of the strongest 
proofs of evolution, is found in the fact that in Embryonic 
growth, each individual passes through all the successive 
stages which have preceded in the line of its tribal history. 
In other words, philogeny is repeated in ontogeny ; the race 
in the individual. At a certain point, the embryo ceases to 
personate its ancestors, and commences to take on the form 
peculiar to its own kind. Professor Haeckel, in his " Evo- 
lution of Man," has given a series of plates showing the 
development of the embryos of the fish, salamander, tor- 
toise, chick, hog, calf, rabbit, and man. At certain stages 
in their pre-natal development, there is an exact resemblance 
of form among them all, each becoming specialized as it 
approaches the time of birth. At one period of its growth 
the human embryo has the long, free, swinging tail of the 
races below it. 

Whither does all this array of facts lead ? What expla- 
nation can the creationist give ? If man was fashioned at 
once, why drag him to nativity through all the forms of 
the brute-creation ? Why masquerade him in the guise of 
the dumb, ferocious, and soulless brutes ? There is no 



298 Proofs of Evolution. 

reasonable explanation of these facts outside of the theory 
of development. There is no escape from the conclusion 
that man, and all mammals, have a common origin and a 
similar philogenic history. How strange and stirring is the 
thought. The changes of ages are compressed into the 
brief span of embryonic life ! 

PROOFS FROM METAMORPHOSIS. 

Metamorphosis is closely allied to embryological develop- 
ment. In the latter the changes are all pre-natal ; in the 
former, they continue after birth, — the transformations 
taking place before our very eyes. All are familiar with 
the common examples. The frog begins life as a fish; 
limbs grow, and lungs displace gills, as he passes on to the 
condition of a tailless croaker. Butterflies, bees and beetles 
start .out as grubs, and undergo what wondrous transforma- 
tions ! The star-fish is first a swimming worm ; the crab is 
born a tail-like shrimp. 

Metamorphosis is simply a term to describe the trans- 
formations which take place under our own eyes, but the 
pre-natal development is equally metamorphic. All living 
creatures pass through all the stages common to the race 
below them, finally branching off to their own special class. 
This is the most mysterious and deeply-seated principle of 
life-growth. The stepping-stones of upward life are the 
vanishing forms of all the past. Each new stage is a birth 
from the preceding. All is metamorphosis from first to 
last. What can all this mean ? In vain we ask the advo- 
cates of the Creation theory to explain. Like Sir John 
Falstaff, they will give no reasons on compulsion. We find 
in Metamorphosis the strongest support to the great law of 
Evolution, modification and adaptation operating everywhere 
on the children of life. 

PROOFS FROM RUDIMENTARY ORGANS. 

The proofs of the Evolution theory from the existence 
of Rudimentary Organs are as interesting as convincing. 
Nature has strewn the life-path with dwarfed and dying 
forms, which testify to her marvelous work in moulding 
mind and matter. She never quite hides her tracks, but 
leaves in bone and tissue, in rock and flower, memorials of 
her brooding care. Her earliest children were lowly born, 
and over their natal-bed arose the rythmic murmur of the 



Proofs of Evolution. 299 

,sea. Rocked on its billowed breast, these children grew 
and rilled the early waters with their kind, from which 
developed all divergent forms. Throughout this upward 
struggle of elemental life, Heredity, like a miser hoarding 
his bags of gold, has kept brief remnants of family traits 
for ages, letting them go only as compelled by the iron 
grip of that "fierce Spirit of the glass and scythe, Remorse- 
less Time." 

We will note a few of the Rudiments which inheritance 
has still preserved, and let them serve as examples of the 
multitudinous whole. It is well known that the baleen 
whale has no teeth, and no use for any ; yet its embryo 
has a full set, which disappear before birth by absorption. 
The plain inference is that the whale has not always been 
a water-animal ; that his ancestors had teeth and legs, and 
roamed through forest, swamp and marsh. In some whales, 
also, pelvic bones are found, and yet they have no hind 
legs. Such bones are mere rudiments of the former attach- 
ment of legs. Again, rudimentary hairs are found in the 
skin, being but fragments of the hairy coat their ancestors 
•once wore, before they paddled their own canoes on the 
briny deep. The breathing organs of the whale are modeled 
for air-breathing, not for water-breathing. It would thus 
appear that our great oil-producer came first from the water, 
then acquired the structure of a quadruped, and finally 
went back again to his native deep. Why did he go back ? 
Will our theological friends say, "It was to swallow 
Jonah " ? 

The Python, also, has rudiments of legs ; and the embryo 
of the calf has teeth Avhich are absorbed before birth. The 
splint-bones of a horse's foot, the turtle's flipper, the dew- 
claw of dogs, the tails of birds, and the gill-arches of rep- 
tiles, are all useless rudiments. The crabs and fish in the 
Mammoth Cave have lost their eyes by disuse, but the 
sockets remain as rudimentary remnants. But more sig- 
nificant than all these, are the proofs furnished by the 
highest animal — Man. In all parts of his bodily structure 
are found the strongest evidences of his animal origin. He 
has dormant scalp and skin muscles, which were of great 
service to his ancestors, but of no use to him. Many per- 
sons are found who still possess the faculty of moving the 
■scalp and ears in a remarkable degree, owing, no doubt, to 
the fact that their ancestors have continued the habit. 



300 Proofs of Evolution. 

Man has a remnant of a third eye-lid, now possessed only 
by some birds and beasts, in the crescent-shaped fold next 
to the nose. The nipples and mammary glands of males 
are wholly useless and suggest the differentiation of the 
two sexes from a common parent form. The sparse covering 
of hair on the human body is a lingering reminder of a time 
when clothes were at a discount. Even now we see some 
hairy specimens of humanity exhibited as curiosities, which 
doubtless represent a reversion to ancestral conditions. 
The thyroid gland in man is a rudimentary and wholly 
useless organ, which sometimes becomes the seat of certain 
forms of disease. In man as in some of the lower animals, 
a sort of pouch about two inches long, which is not only 
useless, but is a constant source of danger, is attached to- 
the caecum of the large intestine. 

Another proof of man's descent from an ape-like ancestor, 
is the fact that the human embryo, in common with such 
animals, has at one period of its growth, a free projecting 
tail, which shortens up before birth, leaving, however,, 
several well-defined vertebrae at the end of the spine. 
These are wholly useless and are, moreover, subject to^ 
injury. 

The vascular system in man is also far from perfect, as- 
we still retain, in part, such valvular arrangements as are 
best suited to the quadruped ; and for want of a better- 
arrangement many of life's ills are due. Many of the vis- 
ceral attachments in men, and especially in women, are also 
adapted to a creature which walks on " all fours," but are- 
very imperfect in their adaption to an upright posture of 
the body. If man was created out and out, such workman- 
ship implies a woeful want of wisdom or constructive skill 
on the part of his maker. These facts, however, are read- 
ily explained on the theory of Evolution. 

PROOFS FROM GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 

The doctrine of Derivation is much strengthened by the 
study of the distribution of animals over the globe. We 
find the dispersion just such as we should expect to see if 
the theory of evolution were true. If created suddenly,, 
we ought to find them after their kind, indiscriminately 
inhabiting islands and continents. But, instead, we find 
that the greater the isolation of the island, the fewer- 
animals ; and those found are more specialized in type. 



Proofs of Evolution. 301 

On the other hand, where opportunities for migration have 
been favorable, we observe the greatest variety of life. 

Again, if specific centers of creation were the method, each 
species would be best fitted for its own environment, and 
could not exist in any other. But the facts show that both 
animals and plants will flourish far away from their native 
homes, under totally different physical conditions ; in many 
cases with decided advantage from the change. 

There are many factors which give rise to diversity of 
organism as influenced by geographical location, such as 
temperature, the effect of mountain barriers, and glacial 
action which induced migration. This subject is so broad 
and deep that we have only time to mention the remarkable 
facts concerning the fauna and flora of Australia. Its 
entire range of animal and plant-life, with trifling excep- 
tions, is found nowhere else on the globe. Among the 
great land-areas of the earth, it presents a striking case of 
retarded evolution, shown alike in species, genera, families 
and orders. It is a country of synthetic types. We still 
have there the egg-laying mammals, and the pouched 
marsupials, of which there are many species ; but of true 
mammals, there are none. Australia and a few other 
oceanic islands — notably the Galapagos and Madagascar — 
seem to be but rudimentary parts of the great body of the 
globe. Here the tide of Evolution has been checked. Even 
the natives are among the lowest in the scale of human 
beings. 

What is the significance of all these facts ? Why should 
Australia be some ages behind its rivals of like climate and 
soil ? It is still in the Mesozoic age. The answer is inev- 
itable. This great island, though doubtless once joined to 
Asia, lies in complete isolation, thus shutting out the mi- 
gration of fierce animals ; and those now there have changed 
but little from earlier types. The reason for this lagging 
development is the comparative absence of that fierce 
struggle for existence, which elsewhere prevails. No lion 
is there to frighten and destroy the kangaroo ; no howling 
wolves to chase the monotrema. Australia is monkey, .less 
and ape-less, although these animals abound elsewhere in 
like climates. Wherever the battle for life has been 
strongest, there we find the greatest progress and variety 
of development. The dwellers of mid-ocean islands have 
had an easy, lazy time of it. " Far from the madding 



302 Proofs of Evolution. 

crowd's ignoble strife, they kept the noiseless tenor of their 
way." 

As Mr. Wallace remarks: "We find the continental 
islands inhabited by animal life more or less similar to 
that of the mainland, according to the time and distance of 
the separation." All these facts are in perfect harmony 
with the theory of Evolution, and utterly at variance with 
any other hypothesis whatsoever. Prom the first dawning 
of life to the present moment, varieties of animal-forms 
and organs have developed most rapidly under the spurring 
whip of the fiercest warfare — a warfare not only of life 
against life, but of Nature against all. Heat and cold, 
dryness and moisture, wind and tide, lightning and storm, 
flood and fire, mountain and chasm, pestilence and famine, 
mist and darkness, one and all have stood like frowning 
giants in the path of living forms. But in spite of all these 
barriers, in spite of inter-racial strife of beak and claw, of 
tooth and venom, the residuary column has pushed onward 
and upward, readjusting itself to ever changing conditions. 
Indeed, this very opposition and antagonism have been 
the potent factors in the ascent of animal life. Australia 
has not kept pace with the continents because the warfare 
there has been little more than a skirmish. The continents 
have advanced under the great law of might. The weak, 
the indolent, and the stupid, were swept from among the 
living; the strong, the resolute, and cunning, remained 
victors. Evolution, and Evolution only, explains the facts 
of Geographical Distribution. 

PROOFS FEOM DISCOVERED LINKS. 

Where are your "Missing Links"? cried the critics of 
Evolution after their recovery from the first shock of Mr. 
Darwin's " Origin of Species " in 1859, and again after the 
publication of his later work " The Descent of Man." Erom 
theological quarters, after the laugh had subsided, came 
severe denunciation of the doctrine. It was said that the 
Evolution hypothesis was both childish and dangerous, and 
that Darwin himself was the Munchausen of his time. 
Even to-day, thirty years from the time of that remarkable 
publication, the masses — those innocent of any learning on 
the subject, and those who study fortified to disbelieve — 
alike cry out in chorus, "Show us the 'Missing links.'" 
This outcry has narrowed itself down to the demand for 



Proofs of Evolution. 303 

man's immediate ancestor. They want an ape who can build 
a tire, whistle, and sing the Doxology ; though they might 
possibly throw off the tire and the whistle. 

Before opening the cabinet of " Discovered links," it may 
be well clearly to understand just what we should, and just 
what we should not, expect to find. First, as to those 
living links which we do not find, it may be affirmed that 
their very absence is proof of Evolution. Its vital princi- 
ple forbids their presence. Natural Selection sends the 
weakest to the wall, and so the transitional forms do not 
live to be looked at. No one life, nor a thousand, is long 
enough to observe the changing forms. As Mr. Darwin 
remarks : " They perish by the very process of the forma- 
tion of the new species." A hundred thousand years or 
more have doubtless passed since man was first a man. His 
ancestral link was prior to himself, and could not have 
survived after man was fully evolved. It could not remain 
a link, but must push on to a fully developed man. If it 
were not so, Evolution would be but a childish dream. 

But the graded forms from brute to man, have all been 
•on the earth. "Why," you ask, "do we not find their 
remains now ? " For this reason : Only now and then one 
was drowned ; for it must be remembered that ocean travel 
was limited in those days, and yachting parties were some- 
what exceptional. It is doubtful whether the " Missing 
Link " was either a sailor or a swimmer. Now, it is obvious 
that only those links meeting a watery fate would stand 
any chance of being preserved in the stratified rocks for 
subsequent discovery. Besides, a link before becoming 
immersed in hardening mud and sand, would do well if he 
escaped being eaten by link-eating monsters of the deep. 
And as for being preserved on land, what could one poor 
little heap of bones do as against the mutation of half a 
million years ? Therefore, in the very nature of time and 
things, we could not certainly expect to find a man-like link, 
living or dead. The soft parts of animals and plants, from 
their very nature, must disappear. The rocks themselves 
crumble and waste away, to be borne to the sea again with 
all their wealth of fossil forms. The earth is broad and 
deep, the stones hard, and the searchers are few ; and more- 
over, the work is hardly yet begun. A museum of " Missing 
Links " will be the attraction of the future. Nevertheless, 
with the door of Nature doubly barred, our sturdy scientists 



304 Proofs of Evolution. 

have broken through, and disclosed some of the rich treas- 
ures beyond. 

First, we will notice some of the living links to be found, 
not on account of Evolution, but in spite of it. These are 
cases mainly of retarded or arrested development, which 
will doubtless culminate at last in true types, the links 
finally disappearing. The most interesting group of syn- 
thetic types are the Amphibians — interesting because it 
explains how we got out of the water, and into the woods. 
The frog, whose transformations have already been referred 
to, is the most familiar example of this group. The shores 
of the early seas were doubtless the scenes of many equally 
remarkable transformations. The creatures, ocean born, 
were brave and hardy fellows, and bent on becoming land- 
lubbers at any cost. All the Amphibians must be regarded 
as links between the true water animals and land animals. 
Their swim-bladders were made into kings, their fins into 
legs, their scales into hair and feathers. 

The living link between the egg-layers and the milk- 
givers is the class of Marsupials, of which the Kangaroo is 
a familiar example, which bring forth their young in an 
imperfect state, the development being completed in a pouch 
in front. In fact, the entire fauna of Australia may be 
regarded as generalized types. Prof. Owen has described 
two curious creatures discovered there, — the echidna and 
ornithorhyncus, — still more primitive than the kangaroo. 
They are pre-marsupials. They are both egg-layers, as no 
other hairy quadruped is. Their eggs are placed, that of 
the echidna in a pouch, as the marsupials carry their imma- 
ture young, and that of the ornithorhyncus in a nest, and 
there hatched. Like no typical egg-layer, they suckle their 
young. The ornithorhyncus, which has a bill like a duck, 
has bones resembling those of birds, reptiles, and seals. 
What can all this mean if not descent with modification ? 
Professor Huxley declares : " On the evidence of Palaeon- 
tology, the evolution of many existing forms of animal life 
from their predecessors is no longer an hypothesis but an 
historical fact." 

The links between the animal and vegetable kingdoms 
are abundant. The Rhizopod is a fine example. It has 
sensation, and seemingly purpose, though non-cellular and 
inorganic. The polyp has no arterial or circulatory system. 
It consists of simple layers of cells, and is propagated by 



Proofs of Evolution. 305 

buds. Here is a being which eats and grows like an animal 
and yet is propagated like a vegetable. The sponge is an 
egg-layer. Its eggs bud or hatch and grow to adult life. 
These cases among the. Protista, which are neither strictly 
animal or vegetable, suggest the beginning of differentiation 
from a common protoplasmic cell. 

Turning to the fossil world, we find, as we should expect, 
innumerable examples of connecting forms. In the later 
deposits, we find remains of toothed birds, having many 
reptilian characteristics. Reptiles were then not a fixed 
type, but shaded gradually from fish to bird. The Archse- 
opteryx, a fossil rarely found, was a true link between the 
birds and reptiles. 

Certainly, no two kinds of living things are more unlike 
than birds and reptiles, or more antagonistic in their 
natures, mutually preying on each other; and yet their 
relationship is clearly established. Psychologically, they 
have nothing in common but hate ; and yet the bird is only 
a feathered reptile. Within three years, there was found, 
in the slate deposits of Bavaria, a specimen of a reptilian- 
bird — now preserved in the British Museum — which has 
a long, lizard-like tail of twenty joints. Says Professor 
Vogt, " This is neither bird nor reptile, but a decided link 
between the two." In the later chalk formations many 
fossils have been found by Prof. Marsh, more bird-like in 
character, but still possessing teeth. The flying dragons 
afford another link between birds and reptiles. The front 
half was decidedly bird-like, but the hind legs and pelvis 
were strongly reptilian. 

The anaplotherium connects the swine with the cud- 
chewers ; the zeuglodon connects whales with seals ; and the 
palaBotherium connects hogs with the rhinoceros. These 
are all true links. 

A remarkable example of a perfect succession of links is 
found in the fossil shells of the Tertiary rocks of Wurtem- 
berg, which are literally packed with fossil forms. These 
shells show a complete grading to correspond with the 
order of the rock-deposits. Here is evolutionary perfection 
without a break. The life once within these shells, in its 
tribal history presents no "missing links." 

To sum up, we find the sponge family — the animal-vege- 
table- — near the original protoplasm. The lancelet — the 
first of the back-bone tribe, with only a line of cartilage in 



306 Proofs of Evolution. 

place of spinal vertebrae — connects fishes and mollusks ; 
the amphibians connect fishes and mammals ; the Archseop- 
teryx connects birds and reptiles; the kangaroo connects 
egg-layers and milk-givers ; but between man and the ape 
there is no living link. Nor can there be if Evolution is 
true ; yet it. is not less certain that he has been evolved 
from a lower animal form than that these other steps in 
biological development have taken place. 

Professor Wilson, of Edinburgh, says: "There can be no 
Evolution for one group, and special creation for another. 
There can be no Evolution for the lower races, and creation 
for the higher forms of animal life, or for man himself. 
Uniformity and secpience exist wholly, or not at all." Prof. 
Huxley also declares, " If one series of species has come 
into existence by the operation of natural causes, it seems 
folly to deny that all may have arisen in the same way." 

It has been truly said, "Of special creation the rocks 
tell no tale." Nor do the present living forms which roam 
beneath " this brave o'erhanging firmament," while all the 
fossil dead, and all living creatures, give out some hint or 
indication of the things they were, and of the evolutionary 
process through which they have reached their present 
estate. 

PROOFS FROM ARTIFICIAL BREEDING. 

It is well known that nearly all domestic animals, food- 
plants, fruits, and flowers have been greatly improved by 
man's endeavor to produce higher and better forms. His 
success has been phenomenal in modifying size, form, color, 
speed, strength, and beauty. If such marvelous results may 
be achieved in one individual's lifetime by accelerating the 
Law of Selection, what wonders might we not expect Nature 
to perform in the ages gone by ? 

The wild species have been modified by Natural Selection 
during countless ages. In a degree man can repeat and 
augment this developmental process in his own brief life ; 
nay, he can almost witness an entire change of species. 
Individual inheritance is from all the preceding race, but 
strongest from the immediate parent. Heredity is cumu- 
lative, and tends toward fixity and stability, until finally 
the opposite tendency to reversion is overcome. Professor 
LeConte says : " During the brief history of man, races of 
the different domestic animals and plants have been found, 
differing so greatly from each other that if discovered in a 



Proofs of Evolution. 307 

wild state they would, certainly be called different species, 
and in some cases genera. If art accomplishes this result 
by Artificial Selection, why not Nature by Natural Selec- 
tion ? " 

The objectors say, " We cannot admit this evidence, for, 
if your improved breeds are turned out again, they would 
revert to original types." The Evolutionist replies : Hered- 
ity is a plant of slow growth. It increases slowly and 
holds firmly ; time is the measure of its strength. If 
pushed rapidly, it will hold lightly. This is a universal 
principle ; what is longest in coming to maturity is strong- 
est. He answers likewise : Domestic animals, if sent back 
to the wild state, enter a new environment and must begin 
anew a struggle for existence in competition with their 
fellows of the woods. They are out of harmony with their 
former artificial conditions, and a readjustment must take 
place. Tame and wild animals are put on common ground. 
They are forced into competition, and must needs fight or 
die. The very principle of Evolution demands reversion in 
such cases. 

There are, however, two interesting questions, not yet 
fully answered ; although they do not affect at all the truth 
or probability of the theory of Descent. Eirst, what is the 
cause of variation ? And, secondly, What is the cause of 
the first step in usefulness ? Why should there be a tendency 
to vary ? * Use can improve an organ, but how can it start 
one ? And how does it start itself ? The answer to these 
questions may perhaps be found in subsequent investigations 
of the psychological phases of the life-problem. 

PROOFS FROM REVERSION. 

One of the most curious facts of Evolution is the tendency 
to revert to ancestral forms. This at first seems to weaken 
the theory of Descent, but in reality it gives it great sup- 
port. It is all a question of environment. If that remains 
the same, there will be little change in life-forms ; for this 
reason the King-Crab and the Nautilus of to-day are quite 
similar to their fossil parents. If former life-conditions 
are restored, what is more natural than retrogression ? But 
even here, paradoxical as it may seem, there is really 



* Since the delivery of this Essay, a writer in the "Popular Science Monthly" 
for April, 1889, maintains with much force that the Tendency to Vary is due 
largely to Psycho-Physiological influences. 



308 Proofs of Evolution. 

progress, for Evolution always insists on the readjustment 
of organs to environment. The changes are best for the 
animal under the circumstances, and therefore truly an 
advance for him. This tendency to reversion is shown by 
the stripes on some horses and mules — a survival of the 
stripes on the wild horse, such as we see on the zebra; 
also, by the animal teeth, peculiar muscles and hairy cover- 
ing possessed by some men and women. The barnacle, once 
a free-swimmer, is now a lazy ride-stealer, a freebooter and 
pirate of the sea, threatening to scuttle the ship. Some 
island insects and many varieties of birds have lost the 
power to fly by long disuse of their wings, safety and food 
not requiring flight. The whale has lost his ability to walk 
on dry land. In general, when any organ has become 
useless, it tends to retrogression, and finally becomes ru- 
dimentary. Nature abhors the useless. But this rever- 
sion is always slow, as Heredity is ever jealous of her 
store. 

Reversions are but eddies in the great stream of Evolu- 
tion, and like eddies show the direction of the current. It 
is as though Nature had sent a courier back a little way to 
guide us more clearly on in our investigations. This feature 
of Evolution, theology should accept since it recognizes the 
principle of "back sliding." The mites and ticks have 
doubtlessly fallen from spiders and scorpions. The insect, 
Stylops, with aborted wings, has sunk back from a free-flyer 
to the ignoble life of a parasite. 

In closing this branch of the subject I will quote Prof. 
Wilson : " While progressive Evolution develops the great 
tree of life, extends each branch, clothes it with verdure, 
and expands each blossom, it is degeneration which lops off 
the worn and aged stems, prunes the weakly foliage, trims 
the budding growths, and so directs and moulds the outlines 
of the organic whole." 

PKOOFS FEOM MIMICRY. 

Mimicry, or the imitative faculty of some plants and 
animals, gives us most interesting testimony for Evolution. 
Some insects and birds, through the law of Natural Selec- 
tion, in configuration and color are like the natural objects 
over which they roam, thus securing a degree of protection 
from their natural enemies. The brooding bobolink harrno- 



Proofs of Evolution. 309 

nizes with its nest, while its unfettered mate in gay attire 
soars happily around. But the valiant crow needs no pro- 
tection, and so is " black as crows can be." Those female 
birds and insects which serve as prey for their enemies are 
inconspicuous in color, while their mates are dressed in fine 
raiment. That curious little insect, the walking-stick, 
looks precisely like a brown twig broken from a tree ; others 
resemble the leaves of plants which grow in their neighbor- 
hood. Some animals feign or mimic death to escape such 
foes as devour only what they kill. Others, again, resem- 
ble a more ferocious animal, and thus secure immunity from 
attack. 

Not all creatures, however, are thus protected, especially 
of the domestic class. But why should safety by imitation 
be accorded to some and not to all animals, if all things 
were created out of hand ? Some are left defenceless ; 
others are aided in concealment. Every animal has his foe, 
and must battle for his life. This, from the point of view 
of special creation, does not look like eternal and even- 
handed justice. It looks, rather, like a logical result of 
the operation of Mr. Darwin's great principles of Natural 
and Sexual Selection. 

SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 

There are two classes of scientific travelers, who go back 
on the Evolution road happily together, until they reach 
the point of Spontaneous Generation, and there they part 
company with none too friendly voice. The one with theo- 
logical views insists that the germ-cells were created, just 
as he once used to think Adam was created. The other 
maintains that this speck of protoplasm was formed by 
chemical and electrical action, and other natural means, 
operating under once favorable conditions on the primitive 
slime ; and that from these primordial cells all succeeding 
life has sprung. In other words, he believes that the life- 
principle is resident in matter itself, needing only vivifying 
conditions to make it active. Why our theological friend 
need diverge at all is not clear. If simply the power and 
wisdom of a Creator are in question, there should be no 
disagreement ; for it is certainly a greater display of Crea- 
tive skill to make an all-pervading law than to make out of 
hand a few germ-cells. It is greater to evolve a principle 



310 Proofs of Evolution. 

than make a simple thing. A thing wears out; a principle 
is eternal. 

It would seem that Evolution cannot fairly stop at this 
little atom of carbon compound. Is it afraid or powerless 
to take the mystic step between the living and the non- 
living ? Did Evolution operate all the way from " star- 
dust " down to this little speck and then cease to operate ? 
Could it make worlds, suns, and systems, and yet prove in- 
efficient at this vital point ? Is it not grander to think we 
were made out of something than out of nothing? If 
creation really was the method, why give us the Garden of 
Eden, with the Fall of Man thrown in, rather than the 
millions of years of struggling, warring life, in order to 
reach our manhood. If we were created then, why was it 
necessary to start us so low ? 

But, say the critics, "If life was evolved once out of 
inorganic conditions, why not again ? " Why not, indeed ? 
Who knows what life is evolving in torrid climes under the 
deep-sea ooze ? But it may be that the conditions of life- 
birth have forever passed. No one has yet proved or 
disjxroved beyond the shadow of a doubt the method of the 
genesis of life on our globe. But there is no reason to 
suppose there has been a break in Evolution, and every 
reason for believing that it has formed one continuous line 
of succession from Nebula to Man. There is no element 
in plant or animal not found also outside of them. It is 
mimicry or imitation on a grand scale from first to last. 
The Moneron has bequeathed its albuminous carbon com- 
pound to all subsequent life ; and we are what we eat and 
walk on. The formation of the crystal corresponds to in- 
heritance and adaptation in organic evolution. It is all a 
question of degree. Professor Haeckel and many other 
eminent scientists hold this view. Professor Tyndall says, 
" Matter has in it the promise and potency of all forms of 
life." 

In closing we will briefly present 

A SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE. 

Astronomy declares the unity and universality of the laws 
of gravitation and evolution. The Nebular Hypothesis 
explains how by the operation of these laws " the infinite 
meadows of heaven" are filled with orbs " unutterably 
bright. " 



Proofs of Evolution. 311 

Geology describes the Evolution of the Earth from a 
formless void to wrinkled age. Entombed within the leaves 
of rock are found in nice gradation all forms of upward- 
tending life, no sharp lines between the types, but insensible 
shading from first to last. As a writer happily puts it: 
"It is as if Nature wrote her own autobiography, using 
for an alphabet the hieroglyphics of life." 

Embryology testifies as to the method of animal evolution. 
It is a brief summary of the story of the race in the life of 
the individual, a rehearsing of the sublime drama of all 
time. Is this all a meaningless phenomenon, a senseless 
panorama ? Is this " epitome and brief chronicle " of the 
ages only a whimsical incantation of some occult power ? 
Is it not rather, on the contrary, a demonstration of Nature's 
method of Evolution ? 

Metamorphosis makes this assurance doubly sure ; for we 
can see the evolving forms before our very eyes. Nature 
is an unsolvable riddle only to the sightless and thoughtless. 

Rudimentary organs are among the strongest proofs of 
descent, and are present throughout the animal and vege- 
table kingdoms. To the biologist, man is a curiosity shop, 
the whale a traveling museum. Was Man created in the 
image of his Maker ? Why, he isn't half made yet. The 
chips of the shop are still on him. He needs yet the emery- 
stone of time. But he is in the hands of a tireless Master, 
deft fashioner of form and function- — Evolution. 

Artificial Breeding is proof of the method of Nature's 
workings. Man can accelerate the process of Nature. He 
has given us better stock and better food-stuffs. Darwin 
in twenty years accomplished what it would have taken 
Natural Selection thousands of years to do. By following 
the method of Nature man has become the originator of 
higher forms — a conscious factor of Evolution. 

Reversion says that the two kingdoms of life are full of 
antagonisms — that ebb and flow are in the heart of all 
things — that strong and stubborn Heredity has a master — 
environment. Heredity never originates. It merely holds 
and perpetuates. If the surroundings are more favorable 
for return to the parent form than to the maintenance of 
the derived form, the organism will go back to the former. 
Life-forms may go onward or backward according to the 
demands of adaptation. But the final result is progress — 
it is Evolution. 



312 Proofs of Evolution. 

Geographical Distribution furnishes evidence of the strong- 
est kind for the case of Evolution. It explains the wide 
diversity of animals and plants on the earth, that they have 
sprung from common sources, and have become scattered 
by migration and other causes. The wider the separation 
of islands the greater the variation of organic types from 
their kindred on the mainland. These facts point away 
from the creation theory, and directly to Evolution. 

Homology, or the Science of Likenesses, throws a flood 
of light on the question of development. It proves, by the 
exhibition of the successive steps, how the whole was accom- 
plished. Mr. Spencer says : " What now can be the meaning 
of this community of structure among these thousands 
of species ? To say it is the work of design, to say 
that the Creator followed the pattern throughout, merely 
for the purpose of maintaining it, is to assign a mo- 
tive which if avowed by a human being we would call 
whimsical." The only rational explanation of natural 
homologies is Evolution. 

Mimicry, or Imitation, adds a strong link to the chain of 
evidence in support of evolution. When strength or cour- 
age is wanting, cunning supplies its place. This imitative 
tendency extends over a wide range of life-forms, and even 
enters the circle of human society. Few men or women 
dare be original and independent, fearing to meet the shafts 
of malice and detraction. To imitate others is the safest 
way. Therefore all reforms, high thoughts, and new ideas, 
find slow acceptance; but to these alone we look for 
progress. 

The new theology, based upon Evolution, has to combat 
the selfish propensity of man to seek for his own ease and 
and resist progress and change. It is easier to dream and 
be common than to think and be exceptional. It is all a 
question of the gray matter of the brain, — of Evolution. 

LANGUAGE AND THE MORAL SENSE. 

The great difference between man and the lower animal 
is the possession by the former of Language and the Moral 
Sense. This difference as at present manifested is indeed 
almost infinite. But let us go back on the tide of time — 
back even thousands of years before the cave-men, when 
speech was but a chatter and conscience was as yet un- 



Proofs of Evolution. 313 

■developed ; then the difference would be a vanishing quan- 
tity. 

The higher animals, in common with man, manifest joy, 
sorrow, love, hate, fear, courage, fidelity, gratitude, jealousy, 
memory and reason, and these qualities are clearly shown 
in their actions. One dog will watch another at his bone 
without interfering with the right of prior possession ; but 
■once let it be abandoned, and the watcher's paw upon it, 
let him take it who dares ! This is a recognition of the 
principle of ownership and property-right, and therefore 
contains a glimmer of conscience. With the development 
■of the larynx and the brain in man came speech and con- 
science, and all the heights of mind. 

CONCLUSION. 

The final question which demands our attention is, How 
does man stand to-day, affected by Evolution ? By it we 
are chained to all the past ; we are pledged to all the future. 
We are a part of Universal Life, of life supreme, of life 
eternal. We have always been coming; we will always be 
going. Our influence for good or ill will be everlasting. 
The difference between the atom and the All is one of 
degree, not of kind. We are kindred at once to the highest 
and to the lowest. 

The crown and jewel, the bloom and fruit of Evolution 
is moral grandeur — is conscience. Like mind, motive, 
reason, will and language, it was lowly born, and has risen 
from the manger of consciousness. It is the collected in- 
heritance of the best tendencies of life. 

Evolution insists on the importance of this world, and 
yet from Love that stands waiting to clasp its idols in a 
future life, it takes no hope. 

Evolution is sweeping from the world a crude and cruel 
theology, giving forth a promise of " sweetness and light," 
— of better social conditions and individual progress. The 
old theology worships the Unknown, and prays to change 
the changeless. It believes at least in " Theological selec- 
tion," insuring the survival of the "elect," while the tropic 
storm of pain sweeps over all the rest. Evolution has 
entered every pulpit, and softened every harsh voice, and 
is hopeful of the time when to creedless moral beauty, man 
will concede a crown. 



314 Proofs of Evolution. 

Man entered the world, as Evolution assures us, not in 
disobedience, but in unison with the two grandest forces in 
breathing Nature. He began life with innocence, and under 
the inspiration of Hunger and Love. The one led to the 
divinity of Labor ; the other to the heights of Happiness. 
Theology declares that he began the world turned out from 
Paradise; Hunger without a crust and Love without a 
home. The one idea was upward; the other downward. 
Which is better ? 

In this presentation of the case of Evolution, I am aware 
that only the borders of the broad field have been touched. 
The fulness of ripe-eared Truth lies yet in store. If I have 
made you hungry, it is well. 



Proofs of Evolution. 315 

ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 

Me. Nelson J. Gates: — 

In discussing this subject, I labor under the disadvantage of 
almost entire agreement with the lecturer. The proofs of Evolu- 
lution are of the nature of mathematical demonstrations. As in 
geometry the statements as to the relations of lines and figures are 
a reflection of the nature of things, — of that which cannot be other- 
wise, — so in evolution the history of the development of a single 
cell is of the nature of a statement of axiomatic law. The law of 
development is within, not without, and we need only apprehend 
it to see its truth. Simple laws are readily seen to be thus axiom- 
atic, but in a complex problem we cannot so readily educe the law; 
but it is there nevertheless. The debatable ground at present in 
Evolution is the question of the origin of life. Evolution has not 
yet proved that spontaneous generation has occurred, but its as- 
sumption that the forces of Nature were sufficient to cause the 
appearance of life is justified by the known facts of biological de- 
velopment. The other alternative, that of special supernatural 
creation, has nothing but ignorant tradition to support it. Spon- 
taneous generation is shadowed forth by the strange phenomena 
of frost-work, in which we often see the forms of ferns and flowers 
imitated perfectly. The process of crystallization is akin to the 
process of growth in organic forms. 

Db. Kobeet G. Eccles: — 

While the popular mind is somewhat slow in grasping the truth 
of Evolution in its comprehensiveness, yet it is a fact that all men 
are evolutionists, whether consciously or not, in the things that 
they know — so far as their actual knowledge goes. In our own 
minds the thoughts that are most fitted to the environing person- 
ality are those that survive. Even in theology, the influence of 
Evolution is evident. Indeed, the founder of Christianity himself 
accepted the principle of Evolution: " First the blade, then the ear, 
then the full corn in the ear." The principle of continuity is one 
that is often overlooked by evolutionists. The illustration used 
by the lecturer, of the fish using fins for land locomotion until 
they developed into legs, is one that enforces this point. There 
is nothing new in itself; but there is continually new synthesis. 
In the past is the foundation of all that shall appear in the future. 
Tou and I differ on some subject; we are neither wholly right; we 
each have a part of the truth ; we compare experiences and thoughts, 
and synthesize them into a new truth that is complete for both of 
us. Wrong synthesis is the trouble with the theologians. In the 



316 Proofs of Evolution. 

most perfect man there is simply a development of the functions 
and attributes of the lowest organism, the amoeba. The observa- 
tion of this universal fact of continuity — that nothing anywhere 
comes from nothing — constitutes the strongest philosophical 
proof of Evolution. 

Mr, Benjamin Reece: — 

Let us note some of the convincing proofs of Evolution in the 
field of Sociology. Professor Clifford says, the selfhood of the 
tribe is of more importance than that of the individual. In ani- 
mals that were gregarious the chances of survival were greater 
than in those which were not. Slavery, in the evolution of morals, 
was an advance upon cannibalism; it at first was prudential, then 
it became immoral to kill in cold blood. The influence of environ- 
ment upon morals is seen in negro slavery in our own country. In 
the North, where slavery was unprofitable, its ethical wrong was. 
earlier seen than in the South, where the institution was of advan- 
tage to the slave-owners. Again, in the North the moral percep- 
tion was manifested in denunciations of the inhumanity of the 
practice of slave-holding; in the South, in the kind treatment of 
the slave. Now even the slave-holder has discovered that slavery 
was both economically unprofitable and morally wrong; and slavery 
is universally condemned, because it has been proved to be un- 
suited to its environment. With the decline of the ancient tribal 
fealty, and the sense of personal comradeship, comes in the feel- 
ing of a wider relationship, of a universal brotherhood. In some 
communities, however, the fact of brotherhood and equality of 
rights is perceived subjectively before the functional development 
of the masses renders its legal establishment practicable or possi- 
ble. Hence arise conflicts and political dissensions. A sudden 
change in environment, for which the subject is not prepared, 
results disastrously. Thus the North American Indian, in common 
with other savage races, was not prepared for the additional leisure 
which the improved implements of warfare furnished by the whites 
gave him, which enabled him to procure subsistence in half the 
time which had formerly been required, and left him without 
sufficient occupation, while, to make a bad matter worse, the 
white man's stimulants came in to fill the gap. He was not pre- 
pared to use the advantages of civilization, which were suited to 
the condition of the white man because he had evolved them. 
There was a break in the continuity. Without occupation, man 
reverts to his original barbarous condition, as seen in the sports 
which engage the attention of the wealthy idlers among us, of 
which horse-racing and fox-hunting are illustrations. 



EVOLUTION AS RELATED TO 
RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 



JOHN W. CHADWICK 

Author of "The Bible of To-Day," "The Faith of Reason, ! 
"Charles Robert Darwin," etc., etc. 



COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED 

IN CONNECTION "WITH ESSAY XIII. 

Spencer's Sociology and Discussion with Frederic Harrison ; Max 
Muller's Science of Religion; Powell's Our Heredity from God; 
Fiske's Cosmic Philosophy, UnseenWorld, Destiny of Man, and Idea 
of God; Abbot's Scientific Theism; Le Conte's Evolution and its 
Relation to Religious Thought; Dr. McCosh's The Religious Aspects 
of Evolution ; Mivart's Lessons from Nature as Manifested in Mind 
and Matter ; Maruneau's A Study of Religion ; Stewart and Tait's 
Unseen Universe; Clifford's Unseen Universe (in Lectures and 
Essays) ; M. F. Force's Darwinism and Deity ; W. Stanley Jevons' 
Evolution and the Doctrine of Design (in Popular Science Monthly, 
May, 1874); Professor Youman's Spencer's Reconciliation of Science 
and Religion (in Christian Examiner, May, 1S62); Conder's Natural 
Selection and Natural Theology ; Strauss's Old Faith and the New ; 
Darwinism and the Christian Faith (in Popidar Science Monthly, 
May and June, 1888). 



EVOLUTION AS RELATED TO RELIGIOUS 
THOUGHT.* 



I appreciate the kindness of the Ethical Association 
in allowing me the first word, and the last on the most seri- 
ously interesting topic of the present course of lectures 
and discussions. The embarrassment of riches it entails 
has been considerably lessened by two preceding lectures — 
Mr. Sampson's on the Evolution of Theology and Dr. Janes's 
on the Evolution of Ethics. From this precedence it will 
appear that I am not expected to treat of the Evolution of 
Keligion but of Evolution and Eeligion, i. e., of Eeligion 
as affected by the doctrine of Evolution. My talk would be 
still further circumscribed, in fact my occupation would be 
entirely gone, if Ethics were, as some insist, all there is 
of Eeligion ; for Dr. Janes added to his treatment of the 
Evolution of Ethics some treatment of the standing of Eelig- 
ion ethically considered in the light of Evolution. But 
the ethical exhaustion of religion I cannot by any means 
allow. I believe that " Ethics thought out is religious 
thought ; Ethics felt out is religious feeling ; Ethics lived 
out is religious life " ; but so thought out, felt out, lived 
out, it is not the only religious thought, feeling and life 
that are possible for us. Ethics is part and parcel of Eelig- 
ion only by historical adoption, and the tendency of "all 
thoughts, all. passions, all delights " in the last analysis to 
lose themselves in God. If we were of those who insist 
upon the limitation of terms to their original significance, 
we should insist upon the absolute difference and separate- 
ness of Ethics and Eeligion, for the reason that in their 
original characters they were different and separate. The 
first Eeligion was not ethical; the first Ethics was not 
religious. These streams of thought and feeling were like 
two rivers, say the Mississippi and Missouri, rising in dif- 
ferent upland tracts, but at last uniting into one rejoicing 
flood. It is oftentimes about as difficult to distinguish 
Ethics and Eeligion in the blended flood with which we 

* Copyright, 1889, by The New Ideal Publishing Co. 



320 Evolution as Related to Religious Thought. 

sweep along, as it is to distinguish the waters of the Miss- 
issippi and Missouri below their uniting place. It has 
often been insisted that the Missouri is the continuous 
river, the Mississippi the tributary ; that the present 
naming has no justification in physical geography. If one 
should contend that Ethics is the main, Religion the tribu- 
tary stream, I think it would not be very difficult to make this 
contention good. But those who insist that Ethics is ex- 
haustive of Religion and is entitled to the name are pre- 
cisely in the fix of an imaginary person who should declare 
that so much of the united flood of the Mississippi and 
Missouri as the Missouri furnishes should be called the 
Mississippi and the rest should be ignored. 

You will agree with me that these are vain and fruitless 
speculations. The positive method is the best. Religion, 
as it now is in the world, is a flood of many waters. Into 
it Ethics has poured its vast Missouri, man's sense of his 
relation to the universe and its controlling powers its Miss- 
issippi (perhaps this as the more stained and turbulent had 
better have the other name), and man's engagement with 
the idea of a future life its immense Ohio. Religion as it 
is at present constituted in the world is composed, with 
emphases that vary with its different sects and schisms, of 
these three elements : Men's thought and feeling about God, 
about Immortality, and about the Moral Law, and of their 
action determined by such thought and feeling. If as I go> 
on I treat almost exclusively of the relations of doctrinal 
evolution to the ideas of God and Immortality, it will be 
from no comparative disrespect for Ethics, but because 
where Dr. Janes has reaped I do not care to glean. 

The evolutionist need never have had any fear that if 
he could establish his doctrine, if he could win for it the 
consensus of the competent among scientists, the organized 
religion, even the orthodoxy of the time, would find it per- 
fectly harmless, would indeed insist that the Bible taught 
it. How like to Emerson's 

"And, striving to be man, the worm 
Mounts through all the spires of form," 

is the New Testament verse, " The earnest expectation of 
the creation longeth for the manifestation of the sons of 
God." Only it must be confessed that nobody ever sus- 
pected any Evolutionism in this till Evolutionism had been 



Evolution as Related to Religious Thought. 321 

painfully wrought out by Darwin and Spencer. The church 
in every period of its domination has held a mirror up to 
the triumphant systems of philosophy and science. It has 
reflected these. It has opposed each new departure ; it has 
applauded each accomplished victory. It has been compared 
to the prince who summoned his courtiers about him to see 
the sun rise at his bidding. The moment it began to peep 
above the horizon he said very solemnly, "Now rise ! " and 
sure enough, it rose. But this comparison is too flattering 
to the church. Its average disposition has been much 
tardier than the prince's in the story. The sun of each new 
day of science has had to climb all the way up to the meri- 
dian before the Orthodoxy of the time has given in and said, 
" I told you so ! " and proceeded to give chapter and verse. 
The doctrine of Evolution is the last of five great scientific 
dawnings since the mind of Christian Europe returned 
upon the scientific mind of Greece in the 14th and loth 
Centuries. The first was the Copernican astronomy. Long 
and hard the church insisted that if the earth was not 
central to the solar system and the sidereal universe, there 
was no God, no Christ, no revelation, no anything that relig- 
ion had held dear. When it had to accept it, then it con- 
cluded that it could, without detriment to any precious 
thing. That the Copernican astronomy was absolutely fatal 
to a theological scheme which held the earth to be the moral 
centre of the universe there cannot, I think, be any doubt. 
The moral centrality goes with the sidereal. However this 
may be, Orthodoxy soon settled back into her old compla- 
cency. Then Newton came announcing the law of gravita- 
tion. This seemed to say the universe could go alone. The 
theological dovecotes were again badly fluttered, but it was 
not long before every dove in them was cooing Newton's 
praise. The next great scientific discovery was geological 
— the antiquity of the earth. B. C. 4004 was the accepted 
reckoning, and the day was October 18th, if I remember 
rightly. As many millions would not now be thought too 
much. But at first the geologists themselves were driven 
back very slowly by the array of facts. Some of you can 
remember the whole process of the church's caving in. At 
first the new geology was denounced as sheer atheism. The 
Bible said that the whole world was made in six days ; the 
new geology that it has been making many millions of years 
and was not finished yet. Then came the fine discovery 



322 Evolution as Related to Beligioiis Thought. 

that the days of Genesis were geologic periods of indefinite 
length. Why, yes, of course ! Why hadn't anybody thought 
•of it before ? But while this discovery did much to soften 
the fall of Orthodoxy, it was soon perceived to be invalid 
by the more intelligent and sincere. Thus was accomplished 
the first serious abridgment of the claim of Biblical infalli- 
bility. It is not too much to say that the intelligence of 
the church is at the present time wholly committed to the 
immeasurable antiquity of the earth and of the cosmos, and 
hardly less so to the conclusion that a literal rendering of 
the six days of Genesis is the only rendering of which the 
document admits. Following quickly on the discovery of 
the earth's antiquity was the discovery of the antiquity of 
man. This is now reckoned from five hundred thousand to 
a million years. There is more danger of reckoning too 
short a time than one too long. For the theological fall of 
man this substituted a rise through many stages of pro- 
gression. It was bitterly opposed, but the indefinite anti- 
quity of man is now a doctrine co-extensive with the general 
intelligence and culture of the Christian world. 

With such a history at his command, the evolutionist of 
thirty years ago need not have feared but that Orthodoxy 
would eventually approve his doctrine if it should win the 
approval of the scientific world. But it would have been a 
very sanguine evolutionist that should have anticipated 
what we have actually seen. For the opposition to the 
new doctrine was at first very stiff and hard, not only from 
the theologians but from the scientists. Doubtless the 
scientific opposition was largely theological. It was atheis- 
tic, the new doctrine ; it was materialistic. If it were true 
there was neither a divine soul in the universe, nor an im- 
mortal soul in man. Neither was there any adequate sanc- 
tion for the moral law. Five or six years after the publi- 
cation of " The Origin of Species," Darwin had no hope that 
he should live to see the general approval of his thought 
by scientific men. But he was happily disappointed. Not 
only so, but he was buried in Westminster Abbey. That 
meant that Orthodoxy had come round, as well as Science, 
— not all of its inert and purblind bulk, but a fair propor- 
tion of its leading spirits. Since then the accessions have 
been much increased. A single volume embraces the favor- 
able conclusions of a dozen different theologians of marked 
ability. It must be confessed that in these examples, 



Evolution as Related to Religious Thought. 323 

which fairly represent a very general relation of enlightened 
Orthodoxy to the doctrine of Evolution, there is a great deal 
of bad accommodation. On the one hand the science, on 
the other hand the religion, is wrenched from its most ob- 
vions meaning. So it has been at every stage of reconcilia- 
tion. The reconciliation has been often very superficial. 
And often there has been no reconciliation; only a giving 
over of the fight, after which the theologians have gone on 
very much as if nothing had happened. There has been 
no such revision of theology as is demanded by the progress 
of scientific truth. The average pulpit talk is wholly out 
of keeping not only with the doctrine of Evolution but with 
the Copernican and Newtonian astronomy, the antiquity of 
the Cosmos, of the Earth and Man. At the same time it is 
evident that the protest of the theologians has not been 
wholly irrational or in vain. It has often forced the party 
of science to a revision of its statement, and still oftener to 
a surrender of certain hasty inferences from its main posi- 
tions. This also must be said, that the religious feeling 
which has inspired much of the most strenuous opposition 
to the successive generalizations of science of the highest 
rank has been entirely sound. It has been a variation of 
the hymn, "Nearer my God to thee, Nearer to thee." The 
Copernican and Newtonian astronomy, and the geological 
and anthropological doctrines of the antiquity of the earth 
and man, have seemed to put him further off. The doctrine 
of Evolution has seemed to do not only this, but to impeach 
the dignity of human nature. The dignity of human nature 
has rightly seemed a more important article of faith than 
the origin of men from anthropoidal apes. I honor those 
who have opposed the generalizations of science until they 
have been proved compatible with a large and generous and 
inspiring thought of God and Man. 

Are the generalizations of Darwin and of Spencer thus 
compatible ? I am aware that Darwin's generalization is 
but a single illustration of the scheme of universal evolu- 
tion which Spencer has endeavored to unfold, but it is such 
a characteristic illustration that I shall not apologize for 
confining myself to it very largely for a time. What really 
concerns us is not some isolated expression of theological 
opinion on the part of Darwin here or there, but the signifi- 
cance of his system of biology in its widest range and its 
completest implications. It matters little that in his 



324 Evolution as Related to Religious Thought. 

" Origin of Species " Darwin explicitly places an intelligent 
Creator at the beginning of the process of organic evolu- 
tion. We wish to know if he is rightly there ; if his being 
there is consistent with Darwin's general system. A nega- 
tive answer to these questions has been very generally 
given by those best qualified to judge the matter. " The 
Creator, in the ' Origin of Species/ " one has said, " seems 
introduced more for ornament than for any serious work he 
has to do, or at least rather to conciliate the mass of hostile 
theological prejudices certain to be aroused by the other 
doctrines than to satisfy any logical demands of the sys- 
tem." I put in a demurrer here. Such was the intellect- 
ual honesty of Darwin that it is not conceivable that the 
Creator, at the beginning of the process of Evolution, in 
the closing paragraph of the " Origin of Species," was any 
cake to Cerberus. It was a survival in culture, a relic of 
the mechanical English tradition which is so conspicuous 
in the theological speculations of John Stuart Mill. But it 
is true that the Creator of Darwin's closing paragraph, 
which caused the widowed heart of orthodoxy to leap for 
joy, has nothing to do at the beginning save to endow one 
or two primordial forms with the lowest degree of elemen- 
tary life, leaving the rest to natural selection and the ordeal 
of battle. And he has had nothing to do ever since (on 
the earth at least) but sit passively by and watch a law 
which executes itself without any need of interference on 
his part. "He is a monarch that reigns but does not 
govern." 

However satisfactory such a God as this may be to a 
word-mongering Orthodoxy, it can hardly be satisfactory at 
this stage of human progress to any thoughtful, much less 
to any religious person. We must have more of God than 
such a scheme allows, or less will be preferred. Only by 
not thinking much about it could Darwin have obtruded 
such a foreign element into the structure of his thought. 
That he did not think much about it is evident from the 
Biography. He was too intent upon the immediate task in 
hand to concern himself much with its relations to a gen- 
eral scheme of thought. A mechanical Creator, "impress- 
ing laws on matter, breathing life with its several powers 
into a few forms or into one " (these phrases are his own), 
is as repulsive to our piirest science and philosophy as a 
mechanical Creator engaged in the special creation of vari- 

■ 



Evolution as Belated to Religious Thought. 325 

ous species. Of Darwin making this concession, the high 
gods of special providence and miracle may well declare, 
rt He has become as one of us." He differs from them only 
in degree. He has not escaped from the region of mechan- 
ical ideas. The God who " impresses laws on matter " and 
breathes life with its several powers into a few forms or 
into one, is a very near relation to the God who originates 
species by special creation and performs the various mira- 
cles of the New Testament. He is the same sort of God. 
And if his appearance in the closing scene of Darwin's 
drama of existence is not without due warrant, then Darwin 
did no more for us than to establish the probability of nat- 
ural selection within certain empirical limits. Within these 
limits the probability is less for his allowance that there is 
an outlying sphere of special creation; and beyond these 
limits the God of special creation, special providence, an- 
thropomorphic action, miracle, is still at large. If Darwin's 
God, impressing laws on matter and breathing life into a 
few forms or into one at the beginning of the process of or- 
ganic evolution, is the true God, there is no reason why any 
one should not be a Darwinian m his biology and a super- 
naturalist in his theology, believing in the miraculous birth 
of Jesus and in his resurrection from the dead. 

To this complexion must we come at length ? Is Darwin's 
natural selection only a patch of new material on the faded 
supernatural garment of the Deity ? It were a lame and 
impotent conclusion. We thought we had a rule and we 
have only an exception. And we are obliged to question 
whether the last state of Darwin's follower is not worse 
than the first. Special creation has been eliminated from 
his scheme of vegetable and animal forms. In place of 
this he has the laws of Reproduction, Inheritance, Variabil- 
ity, Struggle for life, Natural Selection entailing diver- 
gence of character and extinction of less improved and 
weaker forms. These give a real explanation in place of 
an empty name : special creation, an algebraic x, the sign 
of ignorance, incapable of conveying any definite or indefi- 
nite idea. Some of their details are marvelously beautiful ; 
others are harsh and terrible. It is something to have 
knowledge in the place of ignorance ; a real explanation in 
the place of a mere word, big sounding, — meaning nothing. 
But is it a sufficient compensation for the expulsion of the 
living God from all the countless ages that have elapsed 



326 Evolution as Related to Religious Thought. 

since that dim early morning when he breathed the breath 
of life into a few forms or into one ; for the thrusting back 
of Deity into that infinitely distant past ? I doubt it very 
much. "There is a grandeur in this view of life," says 
Darwin. Here speaks the specialist, enamored like Pygma- 
lion with the perfection of his own completed work. But 
to us occurs, just in the measure that we are not merely 
scientific but poetic and religious, the sorrow of Pygmalion 
that this completion is devoid of life. We sympathize with 
the opposition that has always met the astronomer, the 
geologist, the biologist, who has been engaged in pushing 
back the line of the divine activity into a remoter past. It 
has not been irrational. It has been the soul's cry for a 
real presence, a Deity in the present tense, no mere I was, 
but the great I am,. True, there are those whom Darwin's 
original Creator of a few primordial forms grieves and 
offends, not on account of his remoteness and insufficiency, 
but because even then and there he seemed superfluous, 
matter per se with nothing of Divine propulsion, or inher- 
ent spiritual force, being, as they conceive, sufficient for 
the cosmic work. But such are few compared with those 
who least of all things dread too much of God ; whose hearts' 
desire is answered by no far-off mechanician delegating 
powers to certain primitive forms, only by One of whom 
they can affirm, — 

"He dwells above, 
With scarce an intervention ; presses close, 
And palpitatingly, his soul over ours. 
The everlasting minute of creation 
Is felt here. Now it is as it was then. 
His soul is still engaged upon his world." 

Moreover, these cannot conceive of laws impressed on 
matter. Here as in the case of special creation, we have 
mere words. Matter without laws is inconceivable. They 
are no stamp put on. Their dye is in the wool. They are 
the constant methods of the Immanent and Universal Life. 

Do I seem to criticize and condemn where you expected 
only admiration and assent ? But my criticism and my 
condemnation are not for the real Darwin, the Darwin of a 
thousand nice experiments, ten thousand careful observa- 
tions, hundreds of brilliant generalizations, all contributing 
to the establishment of one mighty law ; they are for the 
Darwin of a few ill-considered phrases at the conclusion of 



-Evolution as Related to Religious Thought. 327 

his book, on which the Orthodox have pounced as eagerly 
as an ant upon an aphis, covetous of that drop of limpid 
juice, so pleasant to their taste. These phrases, which Or- 
thodoxy has more highly prized than all the oceanic deep 
of thought on which they are a bit of flying foam, count for 
just nothing with the unbiassed student seeking to penetrate 
the actual significance of Darwin's speculation for religious 
thought and life. A mechanical Creator, no matter how 
remote, stands not in the order of his thought, which sug- 
gests no fragment of organic evolution set in a frame of 
anthropomorphic creation, but a process of organic evolution 
that is co-extensive with the range of universal life. Crea- 
tion by law, evolution by law, development by law, these 
are apologetic and consoling phrases which imply a God 
external to the world. From Darwin's proper self they 
have no warrant. His deepest thought echoed the song of 
Goethe when he sang, — 

"What were a God who sat outside to scan 
The spheres that 'neath his linger circling ran ? 
God dwells in all, and moves the world, and moulds ; 
Himself and nature in one form enfolds." 

The point at which the scheme of Darwin has most obvi- 
ously traversed the scheme of natural theology as expounded 
by Bell and Paley, and a host of equally ingenious writers, 
is that philosophically known as teleology (i. e., the doctrine 
of ends), more popularly as the argument from design. But 
it ought not to be forgotten that this argument, which was 
once equally satisfactory to Thomas Paine and his most 
Orthodox opponents, did not by any means wait for the ap- 
pearance of Darwin to bring it into disrepute. Physics was 
still enamored of this argument when metaphysics demon- 
strated its intrinsic worthlessness. Kant never did a more 
effective piece of work than his arraignment of the argument 
from design, — the physico-theological argument he called 
it, — for the being of a God. But though the Transcendent- 
alists left the watch-maker Deity of Paley wounded and 
half-dead by the way, it must be allowed that Darwin has 
not played the good Samaritan. He has finished what the 
Transcendentalists began. It is not merely that he has 
shown up the absurdity of the egotistic presumption that all 
things are designed for human comfort and advantage, a 
presumption of which the travesty, "cork-trees for corks to 
bottle our champagne/' is not more absurd than the bona- 



328 Evolution as Related to Religious Thought. 

fide teaching that fleas are made black in order that, con- 
trasting with the whiteness of our linen, we may catch them 
the more easily. It is that he has also shown how much 
there is of animal structure which is not useful to the ani- 
mal. Certain rudimentary organs are the most obvious 
illustration. Such are the teeth of whales that never cut 
the gums ; of certain birds also ; the wings of various in- 
sects that are never opened or used ; the caudal vertebrae 
in man, the apjpeiidix vermiformis in the intestines, a trap 
for vagrant substances which, once there, proceed to organ- 
ize an attack of peritonitis on the adjacent tissues. The 
special creationist, the Paleyologian (if I may call him so) 
confronts these facts with a theory of ideal types. The 
Deity is represented as adhering to a general plan, though 
the adherence is not always useful and is sometimes in the 
way. A Deity proceeding in this way has been aptly com- 
pared to a conservative coach-maker who, for the look of the 
thing, sticks a sham pistol-box upon bis coaches when the 
reality is no longer needed. And then, too, it might be 
asked, "Would not a God 'so anxious for the type' have 
brought it out in the majority of cases rather than in a small 
minority ? " 

But there are those, and they are very earnest and intel- 
ligent, for whom supernaturalism and anthropomorphism 
have no longer any charms, to whom Darwinian Evolution 
presents the sinister aspect of a universe that is born of 
chance. What if the variation at this or that moment had 
been quite otherwise, and yet such that, seized upon by 
natural selection, it would have attained to paramount im- 
portance. Then, instead of this cosmos that we have, there 
might have been a very different cosmos ; instead of this 
maw-kind, a very different kind of leading race, — some 
mute, inglorious Jumbo, high advanced and conscious top 
of all. There are those who answer that the variations have 
been determined, tbat the development has been controlled, 
by overruling mind, to certain ends. But this answer begs 
the question, and brings back the extra-mundane God, the 
watch-maker of Paley. Yet if there is no answer, the relig- 
ious outcome of the evolution doctrine is very poor indeed. 
Better, a thousand times better, for the religious heart, a 
mechanic God, a God of interference, special providence and 
miracle, than a universe devoid of purpose, an aimless drift 
and swirl of things. Grant that the argument from design, 



Evolution as Related to Religious Thought. 329 

the teleology of Paley, is dead and buried past all hope of 
resurrection. But a teleology is demanded not only by the 
religious heart, but by the reasonable mind. This it is, 
if nothing else, that sings, "They reckon ill who leave me 
out," 

There is always wisdom in the inevitable speech of men. 
What men cannot help saying is as sure of being at least 
roughly true as what they deliberately affirm. And men, 
.the men of science, cannot help affirming purpose of the 
world of vegetable and animal forms. Take Spencer's defi- 
nition of Life — "the continuous adjustment of internal 
relations to external relations." Adjustment is a word as 
full of teleology as an egg is full of meat. What is adjust- 
ment but " a change in internal relations, as a means, to 
effect a correspondence with external relations as an end" ? 
Again when Haeckel speaks of "the internal formative 
tendency" by which inheritance "strives to keep the organic 
form in its species," he gives himself away to teleology 
twice over in a single phrase — first in the word " tendency," 
and second in the expression "strives to keep." Spencer 
and Haeckel can be convicted of unconscious teleology in a 
much more effective way that by the marshalling of teleo- 
logical phrases in which Darwin's works are also rife. 
Theirs is avowedly a mechanical theory of evolution. Their 
universe is a machine. But a machine is never an end in 
itself. If it were we should still have an end. It is a 
means to an end. Indeed, not only does the mechanical 
Evolution of Spencer and Haeckel give us a teleological 
universe, but it also gives us an extra-mundane God, for 
there never yet was a machine that made itself. Mechani- 
cal Evolution signifies a mechanic God. Well, better so 
than a universe without purpose, without "toil co-operant 
to an end." But given the principle of organic Evolution, 
given the idea of the universe not as a mechanism but as an 
organism, and we have everything we want, a God Avho 
dwells within, enfolding in one form himself and nature and 
a universe that is as full of purpose as the Spring is full of 
life. In so far as the Evolution of Spencer and Haeckel 
has been convicted of mechanism, it has been, I am per- 
suaded, convicted of a fault. Mechanism and Evolution do 
not go together. Organic Evolution is the sign by which 
science and philosophy and religion can together conquer 
for themselves a glorious victory and an abiding peace. In 



330 Evolution as Related to Religious Thought. 

the words of Dr. Abbot * (not of Plymouth Church but of 
the Church Universal), the author of " Scientific Theism," — 
" While the mechanical theory proves itself utterly unable 
to explain its own fundamental concept, that of the machine, 
and much less that of the organism, without calling in the 
assistance of the teleological idea which it claims to reject, 
the organic theory finds in this very idea the ' o r £jen sesame ' 
of philosophy — the rational and real unity, not only of all 
organic facts, but of all facts whatever ; and it shows that. 
teleology, so far from being overthrown by the fact of Evo- 
lution or the theory of Darwin, is the only principle which 
renders either Evolution or Darwinism philosophically in- 
telligible. It is, in truth, the only principle which lights 
up the universe from within, and renders it luminous and 
transparent, so to speak, from centre to circumference." 
This is no bringing back of Paley's God. The teleology of 
Organic Evolution is not the old fashioned teleology which 
sought to find in every statical arrangement a proof of 
wisdom and beneficence. It is a teleology of dynamics, of 
tendencies. It is "immanent in the universe as its omni- 
present thought and life, not external to it as that of a me- 
chanical Creator, working in material alien to or other than 
himself." Here is no aimless drift, destructive of all faiths 
and aspirations of religion, but a tide that sweeps forever 
through the universe of matter and of men in the direction 
of the True, the Beautiful, the Good. 

Darwin entered upon no discussion of fundamental prob- 
lems. Like Voltaire's Candide, he was too busy tending 
his garden, listening for what the earth-worms had to say 
to him and the trailing plants. Orthodoxy, covetous of his- 
fame, has easily convinced herself that he was no material- 
ist. She has his word for it — a God impressing laws upon 
matter — in the last paragraph of the "Origin of Species." 
But it is impossible for any intellectually serious person to 
follow up the process of organic development as described 
by Darwin in his various writings, and arrest his feet before 
the verbal barrier opposed to him in a single place. The 
rush of the great argument carries him through and beyond 
this barrier as if it were a wisp of straw. He cannot give 
good heed to the immense induction, and after all believe 
that organic evolution is a part and not the whole. Every 
experiment arranged to test the problem of spontaneous 

♦Scientific Theism, p. 194. 



Evolution as Related to Religious Thought. 331 

generation may as yet have failed to prove the fact. Future 
•experiments may be as unavailing. But while the first in- 
stance of special creation is not only undiscovered, but in- 
conceivable, the suggestion comes with overwhelming force 
that the transition from inorganic matter to organic life 
as little needed the interposition of an extra-mundane God 
as the transition of our April into May and June. The ob- 
jection to materialism could not be too strenuous, so long 
as matter was regarded as something which, without inher- 
ent mind, could build the cosmos and the thought and love 
and pity of mankind. Nay, let the separate atoms be as 
alive and pushing as you please ; grant them not only chem- 
ical affinities, but each a brain compared with which Newton's 
or Plato's were an imbecile affair, and who shall deem that 
they could so put their heads together as to produce the 
present universe. " The divinity is in the atoms," as the 
seer hath told ; but it is in them not as distinct in indi- 
vidualities, but as a pervasive and cohering unity. 

I can easily imagine that more than one malicious humor- 
ist has said of this course of lectures upon Evolution, "As 
I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar 
with this inscription, ' To the Unknown God.' " Not merely 
the worship of the unknown, but of the unknowable, is 
supposed by many persons to be the only worship that Evo- 
lutionism allows her votaries. It is a lamentable fact that 
Herbert Spencer is himself unknown to the majority save 
as the prophet of the Unknowable, a distinction as little to 
be envied as that accorded to Harriet Martineau, when it 
was said by some irreverent person, " There is no God, and 
Harriet Martineau is his prophet." Eor Spencer's doctrine 
•of the Unknowable is the least characteristic and least val- 
uable part of his entire performance. In his "First Prin- 
ciples " he has made it the propylseum to the temple of his 
thought, but its architecture is conceived in an entirely dif- 
ferent spirit, and it only serves to keep us back from what 
is worthy of our admiration. It is as metaphysical as Prof. 
Davidson could wish, as metaphysical as Sir William Ham- 
ilton's "Philosophy of the Unconditioned" and Mansell's 
■"Limits of Religious Thought," to which it immediately 
succeeded, inheriting the weakness of their philosophical 
method. With Hamilton and Mansell, he insisted on the 
unthinkable and consequently unknowable character of all 
the primary concepts of both Science and Religion. It is 



332 Evolution as Related to Religious Thought. 

astonishing how generally this aspect of Spencer's doctrine 
has been overlooked. It is an aspect that relieves it of all 
those dreadful consequences for which it has been held re- 
sponsible. For however unknowable the ultimate concepts 
of science, we have Mr. Spencer's Biology and Psychology 
and Sociology to show us that we have no lack of scientific 
knowledge. If so much scientific knowledge in despite of 
fundamental ignorance, why not as much religious knowl- 
edge ? There is nothing in the conditions of the problem 
which prevents this happy consummation. No one need be 
troubled by the assurance that an unrelated Absolute would 
be inapprehensible, that an unmanifested Infinite could 
never be found out, " in a universe full of visions and of 
voices." Starting from his doctrine of the Unknowable, 
Spencer proceeds to bring about the reconciliation of Science 
and Religion. They are reconciled by reciprocal confessions 
of an equal ignorance. Now I trust I shall not be thought 
presumptuous if I say that I cannot conceive a more sense- 
less and ridiculous reconciliation than this. If I am thought 
presumptuous I can only say that I am so in the best of 
company — that of as good a friend and loving an inter- 
preter as Mr. Spencer ever had — Prof. E. L. Youmans, who 
wrote, "the terms of compromise he proposes are dishonor- 
able to both parties, no less so to science than to theology." 
"Not what is most abstract but what is most concrete in 
each is the basis of the final and harmonious adjustment. 
* * Spencer, in the result he has reached, does more to 
help forward this adjustment than in the basis he proposes. 
When he gives us the demonstration of Science that all 
phenomena are the result of one absolute and omnipresent 
power, we see the first step in the process of reconciliation. 
Science will demonstrate the fundamental truths of relig- 
ion, while the extravagance of theology will be corrected 
and its confusion made clear by the same process." 

The doctrine of evolution is not Mr. Spencer's private 
property. He has not determined just what it shall or shall 
not be for all time. Other men had labored and he entered 
into their labors, and did more than any or than all who 
had preceded him. Others have entered into his labors and 
done great and glorious work. It is one of the most capa- 
ble of these — Prof. Piske — who writes, "The Doctrine of 
Evolution asserts, as the widest and deepest truth which 
the study of nature can disclose to us, that there exists a 



Evolution as Related to Religious Thought. 333 

Power to which no limit in time or space is conceivable, and 
that all the phenomena of the universe are, whether they 
be what we call material or what we call spiritual phenom- 
ena, manifestations of this Infinite and Eternal Power." 
Whatever fulness and richness of statement there is here 
that we seem to miss in Spencer's reconciliation of science 
and religion, there is nothing that has not come out in sub- 
sequent expansions of his thought. And surely there is no 
lack of knowledge here. We cannot know anything aright 
without knowing it of God. The old claim of theology to 
be Scientia Scientiarum, the science of the sciences, was 
never made so good before as it is now. And it is what 
we know that makes the vast Unknown the boundless con- 
tinent of religious sentiment and aspiration. What makes 
the vast Unknown so quickening to our awe, our gladness 
and our trust is that what we do know is so wonderful, so 
marvelous, and we proceed to people all the great Unknown 
with the benignant forms and forces that have been openly 
revealed to us. When Charles Lamb was fifteen and Mary 
twenty-six, they saw the sea for the first time, and were not 
a little disappointed, because they expected to see "all the 
sea at once, the commensurate antagonist of the earth." 
But when we stand on the sea-shore, is it, as he said, only 
"a slip of salt-water" that we see ? or only 

"Eastward as far as the eye can see 
Eastward, Eastward endlessly 
The sparkle and tremor of purple sea" ? 

It may be all we see, it is not all we feel. Surely what fills 
us with a joy so keen that it is almost pain is not alone 
the flashing tumult of the great expanse of waters ; it is 
also that, beyond where sky and water meet, with the mind's 
eye we see the ocean reaching on and on, beautiful with 
the same unspeakable beauty that lies within our field of 
actual vision. It is the beauty of the known that makes 
the beauty of the Unknown so sure and so entrancing. And 
just as surely the soul's normal delight in the infinite God 
is not produced by any merely negative unknown. ISTo more 
is it by any positive known. No, but by the warrantable 
conviction that all the infinite unknown is, equally with 
what we know, the haunt of beauty, order and majestic 
law. 

Known as an infinite and eternal energy, known as the 



334 Evolution as Related to Religious Thought. 

source of everything that is, known as he manifests him- 
self in all things we can see or hear or apprehend in any- 
way with sense or mind, the God of Evolution does not in- 
vite to wonder and to mystery alone. He does invite to 
these with a persuasion that grows every day more irresist- 
ible as the unknown is shot through and through with 
gleams from that great sun of knowledge which is mount- 
ing steadily our morning sky. But he invites no less to 
those attitudes and beatitudes of mind and heart which Mr. 
Frederic Harrison, that eloquent apostle of the Religion of 
Humanity, declares to be the best religion has to give — 
"love, awe, sympathy, gratitude, consciousness of depend- 
ence, reverence for majesty, goodness, creative energy and 
life." The religion of Evolution is not, in the phrase of 
Mr. Harrison, " a religion only to stare at." It is a religion 
which sends us forth to work for higher truth and better 
service among men. 

What word has it concerning immortality ? The most 
encouraging that any system of philosophy or science has 
yet offered to the world. Much of the difficulty that Evo- 
lution is imagined to suggest was just as palpable before 
the time of Darwin and Spencer. If man has descended 
from the ape and the ascidian, were they also immortal ? 
If not, when did immortality become the privilege of the 
individual ? But there is no difficulty presented by the 
development of man from lower and the lowest forms, which 
is not presented equally by embryology. The embryologi- 
cal history of the individual resumes the development of 
the race. Beginning with a germ which cannot be distin- 
guished from that of any animal or plant, he passes through 
fish-like and ape-like stages until he emerges a "radiating, 
jaculating fellow," monarch of all he surveys. At what 
stage of this development is the gift of immortality be- 
stowed ? The difficulty is every whit as great as that pre- 
sented by the development of the species. There is no 
slightest proof of immortality; only a showing that the 
ascent of man from lower forms adds nothing, as it is very 
commonly supposed to do, to our embarassment. Mean- 
time our embarassment is seriously lessened by our appre- 
ciation of the fact that in the course of cosmic development 
we have had the organic produced from the inorganic, and 
we have had the self-conscious produced from the uncon- 
scious. In either case we have, apparently, a greater leap 



JEvolution as Related to Religious Thought. 335 

than from self-conscious life to immortality. We can only 
say that there was a time when favorable internal and ex- 
ternal conditions struck out the spark of life ; as further 
on they struck out the spark of self-consciousness. Again, 
no scientific doctrine not part and parcel of it has allied 
itself so firmly with the doctrine of Evolution as the doc- 
trine of the conservation of energy. But if the conserva- 
tion of energy be indeed a law, if it was all the way through 
the world of matter and of spirit, then somehow and some- 
where the souls not only of the mighty ones of intellect 
and imagination but of humble folk whose names are soon 
forgotten upon earth are enabled to resume their conscious 
individual life. Again, one of the most significant and im- 
pressive aspects of the general scheme of Evolution is that 
of correllated growth. In the development of animal 
structures there goes along with the development of special 
organs, parts and functions, the development of certain 
others adapting them to changed conditions. Now in the 
spiritual life of man there goes along with the development 
of ail that is best in his intelligence, noblest in his affec- 
tions, grandest and sweetest in his moral life, the develop- 
ment of the hope of an immortal life. Here is a correllated 
growth ; and if the hope that is thus developed is not a valid 
hope, if it is not a solemn and majestic portent of a divine 
reality that we can trust with calm assurance, then have 
Ave a radical contradiction in our moral nature, increasing 
there with every higher thought and nobler act and purer 
purpose of our lives. If the almost invariable concomitant 
of the noblest living is this glorious hope, then, unless 
nature's house is radically divided against itself, this almost 
invariable concomitance suggests with overwhelming seri- 
ousness that the same Power which organizes in us the 
purest splendors of our thought and love, organizes in us 
the hope of an immortal life in which these splendors shall 
go shining on forever. 

The formula of Evolution is the survival of the fittest. I 
know that by "the fittest" in this formula we are to under- 
stand merely the fittest, i. e. the ablest, to survive. But if 
the significance of the doctrine of organic Evolution resolves 
itself into this identical proposition, it is a truism that was 
hardly worth the patience of Charles Darwin's toilsome 
years. Unless this doctrine can assure us in its widest 
scope of the survival of the ideally fittest, the fittest to carry 



336 Evolution as Related to Religious Thought. 

on the work of Evolution to yet grander heights of beauty, 
use, and joy, its intellectual magnificence is the merest 
mockery of its moral imbecility. The development of free 
personality in human life has been so far the crowning work 
of Evolution, the crowning work of God this sick of death, 
and I take it he did not blunder into it, that the creative 
purpose set this way before the singing of the morning 
stars. We have here, I know, the survival of a species, 
not the survival of the individual after apparent death. 
And if we could be allowed the vision which we once en- 
joyed, of Humanity upon the earth advancing endlessly to 
an ever-greatening, never absolute perfection, we might be 
tempted to be satisfied with this. But when science comes, 
as Mr. Serviss came in this course of lectures a few weeks 
ago, to tell us that the climax of Evolution will be the de- 
struction of the earth and of the solar system, and finally 
the resolution of all the starry heavens into " a gray, wide, 
lampless, dim, unpeopled world," she comes bringing a fresh 
argument for an immortal life. Only so can we have any 
true survival of the fittest. I cannot believe that all this 
travail of the ages will only bring to birth another nebulous 
cloud, another formless universe. I must believe that it 
has brought to birth a universe of souls, whose continuous 
and exalted life will justify the long gestation of the world, 
and justify the blotting out of every star that shines in the 
high vault of heaven. I cannot see why we should stultify 
ourselves that we may justify the ways of God. White may 
be black, sweet may be sour, right may be wrong to other f ac- 
uities than ours. It is only by our own that we can judge, 
and judging by our own, "Without Spirit-immortality," 
as Le Conte has said, " the cosmos has no meaning. * * 
Without Spirit-immortality this beautiful cosmos, which 
has been developing into increasing beauty for so many 
millions of years, when its evolution has run its course and 
is over, would be precisely as if it had never been — ■ an idle 
dream, a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing." 

Erom treating the ethical aspect of my subject, which is 
not the least important, I am discharged by Dr. Janes's 
clear and impressive presentation of this aspect a few weeks 
since. I will only say that there are those who claim for 
ethics a religious source and aim and imagine that in doing 
this they are antagonizing the philosophy of Evolution. 
But never has a system of ethics been conceived that is 



Evolution as Belated to Religious Thought. 337 

more fundamentally religious than the system of a consist- 
ent evolutionist. "For clearly," as John Fiske has said, 
" when you say of a moral belief that it is a product of 
Evolution, you imply that it is something which the uni- 
verse through untold ages has been laboring to bring forth, 
and you ascribe to it a value in proportion to the enormous 
effort it has cost to produce it." The Evolutionist is not 
talking rhetoric, but science, when he declares that the dis- 
tinction between right and wrong is rooted deep in the 
foundations of the world. When Wordsworth, in his " Ode 
to Duty," sings : — 

" Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong 
And the most ancient heavens through thee are fresh and strong," 

he is not more poetical than scientific. For the same un- 
ending genesis that evolved the original nebula into suns 
and stars has wrought into the inmost substance of the 
universe the principles of right and wrong. "Human re- 
sponsibility," as Prof. Fiske has said, " is made more strict 
and solemn than ever when the Eternal Power that lives in 
every event of the universe is seen to be in the deepest 
possible sense the author of the moral law that should guide 
our lives, and in obedience to which lies our only guarantee 
of the happiness which is incorruptible — which neither 
inevitable misfortune nor unmerited obloquy can ever take 
away." 

It is no ghost of a religion which appeals to us with 
thoughts and sanctions such as these. It is a veritable 
religion, "capable of affecting human life by acting on the 
human spirit" as no substitute for religion can do, even 
one so high and noble as the so-called Eeligion of Human- 
ity. For it not only gives to moral sanctions 

"an equal date 
With Andes and with Ararat," 

but, seeing that the moral lavv is rooted in the foundations 
of the universe, the universe is moralized by this percep- 
tion ; the infinite dark of the unknown orbs itself into a 
Sun of Righteousness with healing in its wings. 

"Thus he dwells in all 
From life's minute beginnings up at last 

To man 

So in man's self arise 
August anticipations, symbols, types 
Of a dim splendor ever on before." 



338 Evolution as Related to Religious Thought. 



ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 

Eev. Meele St. Cboix Weight: — 

I believe that the doctrine of Evolution, contrary to the general 
fear, really re-enforces the idea of God. The perception of an 
order in the universe is an evidence of God in the universe. There 
must have been a cause to start the universe — to begin the process 
of evolution. Speculation as to this cause is beyond science, and 
belongs to philosophy. There is no room in the universe for chance. 
Nature presents a grand spectacle of material order, man of moral 
order. Our idea of God must cover both. Evolution, therefore, 
shows God with us, though in a different way from that in which 
he was formerly supposed to be with us; hence the opposition to 
the new thought. Law is an expression of method, and method 
involves purpose, intelligence. The scientists appear to be coming 
around to the idealistic position. Professor Cope holds that there 
is a consciousness in all things, and that this develops at last into 
man's self -consciousness. From this is developed, on a scientific 
basis, the idea of immortality. The brain is simply the machine 
of the mind, which does not perish when the brain dies. Evolu- 
tion, therefore, leaves the three fundamentals of religion un- 
touched: the belief in God as the author of law; in the soul as an 
individual entity; and in the immortality of the self-conscious 
soul. Evolution shows the adaptation of means to an end. It 
transfers the idea of design from particular fact to general princi- 
ple. The Divine is still necessary to account for man's thought 
and capacity for progressive development. 

Peofessoe Jeeome Allen: — 

I stand before you as a staunch Presbyterian and yet a firm evo- 
lutionist. I could agree with much of the essay — perhaps most 
of it — but will present one or two points of possible disagreement, 
bearing upon the relation of Evolution to Christianity. There are 
two kinds of natural religions — those which are moral and those 
which are immoral in their influence. But Christianity I believe 
to be an excejDtion to the general rule of evolution, being an extra- 
natural product. If I was convinced that Christianity was a 
product of Evolution, I should not be a Christian. I would define 
religion as a sense of dependence on an external power. Any one 
who feels this sense of dependence on an outside Power, has a 



Evolution as Related to Religious Thought. 339 

religion. The earliest religions did not help man to right action,, 
but the reverse. Eeligion does not always make us better, but 
sometimes worse. It is often dissociated from morality. The 
religions of Zoroaster and Gautama were examples of moral, those 
of Mahomet and Joe Smith of immoral religions. But Christianity 
is not an evolution from anything before it: it is a revelation. The 
Christian religion was not a development of the Jewish religion, 
but a thing sui generis. It is as nearly as possible the direct oppo- 
site of the Jewish religion. The Christian religion brings the soul 
into organic union with God. This differentiates it from all other 
religions. The Christian is united by a mysterious process with 
the personal soul of God himself. If it could be established that 
Christianity is an outcome of purely natural forces, Christianity 
would pass away. 

Kev. D. W. Morehouse: — 

I cannot agree with the position taken by the last speaker. The 
doctrine of organic evolution places religion on a firmer basis than 
ever before, because it proves it to be a natural and universal re- 
quirement of the human mind. According to the last speaker, 
there was no true religion before Christianity. This compels an 
unworthy conception of a Being who is assumed to exercise a 
fatherly care for all his creatures. That there has been an evolu- 
tion in religion is almost self-evident, and that Christianity is the 
finest flower of this evolutionary process is almost equally self- 
evident. Instead of doing away with Christianity, the demonstra- 
tion of the truth of Evolution in all its bearings will cause a 
further evolution in Christianity, placing religion on a still nobler 
plane than it has heretofore occupied. 

Dr. Lewis G. Janes: — 

My own investigations have compelled me to a conclusion pre- 
cisely opposite to Professor Allen's, as to the nature of the Chris- 
tian religion. To me it appears one of the most admirable illustra- 
tions of religious evolution. Its essential elements are not, indeed, 
all inheritances from Judaism, but they grew naturally out of its 
intellectual environment. No assumption of the supernatural is. 
necessary to account for the origin or development of Christianity. 
While agreeing with nearly everything in Mr. Chadwick's admira- 
ble essay, I cannot quite regard as valid his criticism of the doc- 
trine of the Unknowable. Accepting Mr. Spencer's psychology,, 
his doctrine of "transfigured realism" naturally grows out of it. 
We have, according to this conception, a world of phenomena 



340 Evolution as Related to Religious Thought. 

which is infinitely knowable, but which is symbolical only of the 
Absolute Reality which lies behind phenomena, and of which the 
human mind can take no direct cognizance. This region of the 
Absolute — this substantial Eeality underlying both sense-percep- 
tion and consciousness, is the Spencerian Unknowable. Spencer 
may, as Mr. Chadwick assumes, have unconsciously appropriated 
some of the metaphysics of Mansel and Hamilton ; but if we accept 
a psychological foundation even more realistic than his, which I 
am inclined to do, I do not see how we can get entirely rid of an 
Unknowable Reality. Take the lowest organisms, for example, 
with a single, vague, undifferentiated sense of feeling or apprehen- 
sion of external reality. They are manifestly shut out from a vast 
field of knowledge which is possible to us. To them, this is a part 
of the Unknowable. Man is limited to five senses — five avenues 
of approach toward the external world. Each of these senses is 
limited in its scope or range. Must we not, therefore, admit that 
there is an External Eeality — knowable perhaps per se, but un- 
knowable to man because of the limitations of his sense-percep- 
tions ? The recognition of this fact seems to be forced upon us 
by science itself, and its acknowledgment appears to me to be an 
essentially religious act of the mind. 

Me. Chadwick: — 

I have no time, at this hour, to follow Dr. Janes into the dis- 
tinctions between the unknown and the unknowable, in which I 
think he may have taken valid ground. Spencer's later writings 
have been inconsistent with the disreputable compromise between 
science and religion which he proposed in his "First Principles." 
I could not altogether agree with Professor Allen as to the im- 
morality of Mahometanism. At the time of its origin it Avas an 
improvement upon the Christianity of the East, and in competition 
with that Christianity it has steadily prevailed. Nor can I accept 
his distinction of moral and immoral religions, in the broad sense 
in which he drew it. Immorality is an incident of all religions, 
even of Christianity. This church has had the reputation of 
being heretical, but I am glad to say that the worst heresy ever 
uttered here has come from a Presbyterian professor! Christianity 
not an evolution from Judaism ! Why, we have Jesus' own word 
for it that it was : "I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." In- 
deed, it seems to me that the Jews of our time, the more liberal 
of them, are nearer to the religion of Jesus than are the popular 
forms of Christianity. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVOLUTION 



BY 

STARR HOYT NICHOLS 

Author of "Monte Rosa, or the Epic of an Alp, — A Poem.' 



COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED 

IN CONNECTION WITH ESSAY XIV. 

Spencer's First Principles and Psychology ; Fiske's Cosmic 
Philosophy ; Thompson's System of Psychology ; Martineau's Types 
of Ethical Theory ; Perrin's Religion of Philosophy ; Abbot's Sci- 
entific Theism; E. D. Cope's Origin of the Fittest, and Evolution 
and Idealism (in Open Court, No. 28); Stallo's General Principles 
of the Philosophy of Nature, and Concepts and Theories of Modern 
Physics; Lewes' s History of Philosophy ; Huxley's Lay Sermons 
and Critiques and Addresses ; Winchell's Speculative Consequences 
of Evolution ; Comte's Positive Philosophy; Writings of Frederic 
Harrison. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVOLUTION.* 



The Evolutionary Philosophy is the latest born of time. 
Not that it has been undreamed of in the cogitations of 
naturalists and speculators from ancient days, but that as a 
credible and established system its currency is very recent. 
Its acceptance may be said to date from after the publica- 
tion of "The Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin, in 
1859. And though it now assumes the air of a philosophy 
in rank with the oldest and most honored systems, yet is it 
in no way descended from any former system of philosophy, 
nor even in its origin does it show relationship to them. It 
was not born of their stock nor connected in their lineage. 
It has not the blood of their ancestors in its veins. It is 
rather a gypsy philosophy, born of nature under the hedges. 
It comes not of thought, but of fact ; not of spirit, but of 
flesh. Plato had no glimpse of it, and Aristotle would have 
regarded it not as philosophy proper, but rather as a kind 
of mechanic generalization having no claim to place beside 
metaphysics and ethics. It is not derived from the new 
Platonists, nor from the scholastic philosophizing of the 
church and the Middle Ages. It has no derivation from 
Kant, though Kant, outside of his " Pure Reason/' stretched 
hands towards it ; nor from Spinoza with his technical and 
tedious demonstrations ; nor from Descartes with his tauto- 
logical cogito, ergo sum ; nor from Hegel with his vast um- 
brage of logical sequences ; nor did Hobbes or John Locke, 
or the Scotch psychologists, or Hume or Sir William Ham- 
ilton, nor even d'Holbach with his system of Nature, nor 
Auguste Comte in his Positive Philosophy, ever get well 
upon the track of the doctrine and philosophy of Evolution 
as we know and hold it to-day. 

Rather did it make its entrance into the world from 
quite another parentage than that of the so-called philoso- 
phers of the old schools. Por, while they were dreaming 
and arguing, other men were examining and proving the 
things of the material world about them ; and so it came to 
pass that Lamarck the botanist, and Laplace the astronomer, 

* Copyright, 1889, hy The New Ideal Publishing Co. 



o44 The Plillosojjhy of Evolution. 

and Draper the physiologist, had perception of the truth 
which all the grand metaphysicians in their reasonings had 
clearly missed. 

Of this fatherhood, the Evolutionary Philosophy got its 
geniture ; and being itself an evolution not from Philoso- 
phy so-called at all, but from Science, it unexpectedly grew 
to be a philosophy, to the signal discomfiture of all the 
previous professors of that lofty pursuit. And .being thus 
basely born it manifests the difference of its origin and 
blood by turning its hand against all of the ancient sys- 
tems, itself a reckless Ishmaelite outside of the old Israel, 
accusing them of being false pretenders to knowledge and 
claimants of wisdom which they never possessed. Por there 
is no philosophy hitherto so-called whose dicta it does not 
bring in question and whose conclusion it does not put on 
trial for its life. 

ISTow the Evolutionary philosophy in its simplicity is 
merely a statement of what we see about us on all sides 
and at all times. As a philosopher the Evolutionist looks 
about him and sees that the universe of to-day is the result 
of the universe of yesterday, as yesterday was the result of 
the day before that; and argues that all our yesterdays 
were in like manner the products of the days preceding 
them. And so he reasons, in like manner, that all to- 
morrows will be the product of their predecessors, with 
never an alteration in the everlasting procession. And then, 
widening his view, he declares that the method of the uni- 
verse always has been and always will be exactly the same 
a? we see it about us, one thing changing into another by a 
restless and unintermittent procedure of which he can dis- 
cover no beginning, nor the chance of any end. 

This is saying, in effect, that this present world is a 
sample of the whole universe, and this present time a sam- 
ple of all eternity ; that our present knowledge is the same 
in kind with all the knowledge that ever was or ever will 
be, to the last syllable of recorded time. Here and now we 
have all there is of everything, at least in outline, and though 
many things will be discovered in the future which are be- 
yond our ken at present, yet will all future discoveries be 
of the same general nature with what we know to-day. 
They will be part and parcel of the evolution of nature, 
along lines of cause and effect such as are familiar to every 
one now from his early years. 



The Philosc>2ohy of Evolution. 345 

This position is the same in philosophy with that of 
Lyell in Geology, which has reclaimed Geology from a dream- 
land of cataclysm and monstrosities to a world of sane and 
familiar forces, whose effects we know and can study in 
actual experience. It is the same position as that secured 
by Newton in astronomy, when, by discovering the law of 
gravitation, he dismissed the angels of all the planets, once 
supposed to guide their revolutions round the sun, and sub- 
stituted instead a calculabh? law sufficing for every emer- 
gency. And the position rests upon the principle which gov- 
erns all reasonable thinking, of which the law is to study 
the known and from it to learn what is likely to be the 
nature of the unknown, on the ground that the universe is 
all of one piece and one order, and that there is no call for 
any other order or law but only for the one, and that one 
the one we already know. And the Evolutionary Philoso- 
phy therefore insists that the more one studies the method 
of the world about him — the present and living facts of 
•existence — the more sure is he to judge aright of the whole 
universe and to be able to conceive the farthest range and 
scope of its most distant possibilities. It looks down with 
light scorn upon the assertions and propositions of those 
who philosophize upon possible worlds with no detailed 
comprehension of this world, who assert unverifiable propo- 
sitions of many sorts without having mastered .verifiable 
propositions enough to steady their minds and give poise to 
their judgment. 

Now this assertion of the scheme of the universe as re- 
sembling in its utmost reach what is known of this world here 
and now, is based upon no less a matter . than the complete 
testimony of all the studies which men have been able to 
make and verify respecting things everywhere. All the 
■sciences have been consulted in the formulation of the 
dogma. Astronomy, geology, botany, zoology, embryology, 
the utmost discoverable antiquity of the past, the widest 
diversity of the present, things most alien and separate, 
things of the largest and those most minute, the secrets of 
•chemical action, the farthest flight of comet and star, the 
viewless behavior of unseen atoms and the movements of 
invisible forces, all have been taken into council and made 
to bear their witness. Nor has the verdict been rendered 
till each one had spoken and given his free word ; and there 
is no dissenting voice among all of them. The doctrine of 



346 The Philosophy of Evolution. 

Evolution is simply the widest generalization of all facts, 
gathered from remotest orbs as well as from the gases about 
us and the grasses beneath our feet. It is a declaration of 
the procedure of the present from the past, of the future 
from the present, the statement of belief that this was 
always so and always will be so, and that the universe is 
complete and self-regulating under the control of this prin- 
ciple. 

Being thus a generalization from natural facts, the Phil- 
osophy of Evolution does not need to borrow weapons from 
old reasoners or books of the past. It asks nothing of 
nominalist or idealist ; it shows scant respect for metaphy- 
sician or logician. It has little to say to the old disputants 
about "cogito, ergo sum" or the essence of being, or the 
thing in itself, or the ontological proofs of the existence of 
God. When reading the metaphysical philosophers, one is 
fain to be persuaded that important interests for humanity 
are bound up in their conclusions ; but Evolution brings 
one to his sober senses and discloses the habit of trifling 
which metaphysical studies give to minds devoted to them. 
As an example, consider how many hours good minds have 
wasted over Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," with its 
fruitless propositions. What is the use of reasoning as to 
whether space and time have only formal existence or also- 
real existence, excepting as an exercise of ingenuity ? It 
is a pretty piece of chess-playing, perhaps. And all his 
learned discussions as to how a priori judgments are pos- 
sible — as if there were any such reasonable judgments — 
and the like, are they aught but mere excursions of curi- 
osity, worthy of attention only from those who have no 
serious pursuits ? Evolution, not having been rocked in 
the metaphysical cradle, gives cool recognition of these and 
similar studies. It merely calls attention to the fact that 
either side of their questions has no material proof, and 
therefore lacks in the first condition of a verifiable propo- 
sition. 

The wide difference of methods existing between the 
Metaphysical and Evolutionary Philosophies is seen nowhere 
more forcibly than in the systems for discovering truth em- 
ployed by the Transcendentalist, Hegel, and the Naturalist, 
Darwin, respectively. Both were men of extraordinary in- 
tellect, of great industry, of pertinacious devotion to their 
ideas, of wide range of investigation, and comprehensive 



The Philosophy of Evolution. 347 

statement. But Hegel sat down in his study and gave his 
days and nights to profound reflections on abstract Being, 
and the course of nature as a course of thought. He then 
developed a series of abstract, verbally logical sequences, 
on whose lines he affirmed the universe to have been laid 
clown, and expounded them with awful toil and subtlety. 
His main principle of the identity of contradictions proved 
-as barren as other metaphysical discoveries. The reasoning 
was cogent, the proof by definition (if definition could ever 
prove anything) was convincing, but still nothing ever could 
grow from it all. Verbal propositions can produce only 
verbal progress, and verbal progress is like Mr. Carlyle's 
spavined horse, "all move and no go." 

As if to make the futility of metaphysical investigation 
- — even if its principles were true — the more startling, 
Hegel's dialectic had the advantage of being itself evolu- 
tionary in its form and spirit. One proposition springs out 
of another by a surprising derivation, resembling a real 
parentage and sonship as closely as words can resemble the 
facts of the world. But it proved to be valueless all the 
same — for thought can never have the value of things, ex- 
cept when it represents things exactly. It is otherwise 
but a baseless fabric of vision — the cloud-world of the may- 
be, not the land of the real. One might go on entertaining 
its theorems for centuries, as happened during the ages of 
scholasticism, and not a step forward for the welfare of man- 
kind would be made in consequence. 

Compare this whole procedure with that of Mr. Darwin 
in his endeavor to discover the order of nature. Not in 
the closet, nor in his own mind, did he fancy that he could 
find the principles of the universe, but only in nature her- 
self. To nature, therefore, he applied himself, made a 
voyage of study round the world, seeking everywhere the 
material facts and procedure of things, comparing and sift- 
ing verities with tireless industry and for many years, until 
his main proposition of the transformation of species was 
established. Then he enlarged his theory and disclosed 
the everlasting mutation of the restless universe, the in- 
structive and fruitful law that anything may become any- 
thing else if its material basis is properly handled. And 
this philosophy brought, at last, the long fumbling of the 
metaphysicians to an end. Never again could their endless 
logomachy interest sober minds. Never again could they 



348 The Philosophy of Evolution. 

maintain the supremacy of their industry or its claim to be 
most worthy of human attention. Their ghosts and hob- 
goblins began to scatter and fade in the growing light of 
the new dawn. The emptiness and muddiness of their 
writings began to be visible to their most devoted adherents. 
The Darwinian fact made the Hegelian fancy look pale and 
thin as the formless air. 

And this was further elucidated by the wonderful books- 
of Mr. Herbert Spencer, who carried the evolutionary doc- 
trine and its method of investigation through all the old 
haunts of the metaphysicians, and showed what mines of 
knowledge the new method could disclose, full of the silver- 
and gold of truth, where before men had perished in bottom- 
less quicksands or quagmires of speculation. For under 
his masterly handling the physical or physiological basis of 
many an ancient doctrine was exposed for the first time, 
and the material truth of which the metaphysical dogma had 
been the confused and disconnected statement was brought 
to light and set in its due place in an evolutionary universe. 
Then both the adherents and the opponents of various 
dogmas were angered and dismayed, to find that their con- 
tention was a chaffering about husks and shells, while the 
kernel of the matter had been claimed or known by neither. 
What the Philosophy of Evolution required of the meta- 
physicians was real proof for any of their assertions, and 
this demand it was which brought their windy quarrels to 
quietude. They had no real proof, and soon it became clear 
that they never could furnish any. They had been furnish- 
ing verbal proof, on both sides of interminable question s r 
for centuries, but real proof in the actual working of the 
universe there was none, and they could therefore bring- 
none forth. And when Evolution came forward, offering to 
demonstrate by bare facts a multitude of propositions all 
going to verify its own main principle, no wonder it arrested 
the attention of all and drew disciples in crowds from the 
schools of the old teachers. For it at least furnished a 
standard of truth, which the former had failed to do after 
ages of painful industry. 

And the main difference between Evolution and all preced- 
ing systems is perhaps most of all in this, that its adherents 
can verify their assertions by a standard of proof, whereas 
the metaphysicians are still unable to do so, as they have 
no standard, and therefore every man says that which is 



The Philosophy of Evolution. 349 

right in his own eyes. The evolutionist appeals to fact, 
the metaphysician to thought, with the advantage to the 
first that the fact remains while the thought perpetually 
changes. 

A special illustration of the superiority of this Evolution- 
ary appeal is seen in its application to those fanatics of 
wilfulness and hap-hazard, the Intuitionalists. These 
thinkers, of whom Ralph Waldo Emerson is the anointed 
high-priest and oracle, were disporting themselves like dol- 
phins in the high seas, amid what they claimed to be high 
themes, showing an originality and brilliancy of expression 
unrivaled. So long as they were not called upon to estab- 
lish any of their assertions, they were very successful, and 
astonished the empyrean with the splendors of their rhet- 
oric and the lustre of their paradoxes. Who could surpass 
Mr. Emerson in the courage and kindling fire of his dis- 
course ? Who could seem nearer to nature and the true 
order of nature than he ? He held his audiences and read- 
ers enthralled, as he seemed to open to them the loftiest 
heaven of thought and to disclose all the secrets of spirit 
and spiritual worlds. But the arrow of evolution, alas ! 
takes him also in its winged flight, — him the beautiful 
Achilles, — and glancing strikes the vulnerable tendon of 
his heel with fatal effect. For what the Philosophy of Evo- 
lution undertook to do was, as I said, to prove its positions 
with the amplest evidence. It would listen to everything, 
but accept nothing without demonstration. It had no ears 
for glittering generalities,. It would have chapter and verse 
from the Bible of fact for any proposition which the arrested 
Intuitionalist might be inspired on his tripod to deliver. 
This threw a coolness over the industry of those venture- 
some and guileless thinkers, which we fear will deepen as 
time goes on. Eor surely the grasshopper-like flight of 
their thoughts is calculated to bring them nowhither. They 
spring into the air and come down wherever God wills. But 
Evolution, as a doctrine, builds a solid causeway of proved 
truth through the trembling swamp of human conjecture 
wherein they wander, — a causeway over which the nations 
of the future may march to ever-increasing power, wisdom, 
and happiness, as long as the world may last. 

The Positive Philosophy, so-called, of August Comte, 
has something to say to Evolution, and claims many of its 
doctrines and benefits for its own. In so far as it induced 



350 The Philosophy of Evolution. 

men to leave the pathless woods of metaphysics and myth- 
ology for the cleared land of science it of course deserves 
the laudation of philosophers ; but it came far short of dis- 
covering the fundamental postulates of evolution. It AYas 
itself metaphysical and fragmentary. It was so little 
familiar with the true method of philosophizing that it at 
last landed its believers in the paltry and time-wasting cult 
of its founder's mistress, and in a Religion of Humanity 
which is good enough for an ideal but has no roots in the 
nature of things. It elevates a sentiment to that throne of 
authority which fact alone can satisfactorily fill. Posi- 
tivism played an excellent part in its insistency that a 
philosophy should deal with the universe itself rather than 
with various notions about the universe. It deserves a 
magnum cum laude for pointing out the unsatisfactory 
service rendered by metaphysics. But it was only a door 
to the method of nature, and not that method itself. 

Leaving now the other systems to their own intrepid 
adherents, let me say that the Evolutionary Philosophy 
seems to me to be essentially materialistic. It is true that 
its greatest apostles, Spencer and Huxley, and Mr. John 
Fiske as well, allege that of the two world-old dilemmas 
between mind and matter, every analysis leads rather 
to the conclusion that we know the universe far more as all 
mind than we do as all matter. They do indeed deny that 
we can claim to know its real nature at all, and so sustain 
themselves in the airy spaces of agnosticism, declaring the 
existence of "an Unknowable Reality" beyond our ken. 
Mr. Spencer labors the point frequently, asserting that 
consciousness and reason alike fail to carry us beyond a 
knowledge of relations, which never disclose the absolute 
reality. The permanent substratum of mental being, which 
abides behind all the changes of thought, and the permanent 
substance in which all the qualities of matter inhere, must 
forever remain hid from us. But if we were to decide any- 
thing as to the nature of the ultimate substance, he says we 
should decide it to be mental rather than material, for con- 
sciousness itself is nearer to mind than it is to matter, so 
far at least as we see it internally. All our knowledge is 
declared to be given in units of feeling at last, and these 
units of feeling are mental. We seem thus to be crowded 
back to the old metaphysical basis for all philosophizing — 
the primitive testimony of consciousness. While one may 



The Philosophy of Evolution. 351 

well pause before entering the lists against Mr. Spencer, 
yet one is also daunted at finding himself planted on a 
metaphysical bog for the foundation of a physical philoso- 
phy, and therefore he may make a shift to get foothold else- 
where. 

And perhaps he may find such foothold in the position 
that the units of feeling seen in consciousness are really only 
units of force (which are recognized as the ultimate elements 
of the external world), seen under a subjective transfor- 
mation effected by nerve-sensibility. In confirmation of 
this he may at least point out that knowledge, so long as it 
was discussed as composed of units of feeling, was sterile 
of results and incapable of progress. Only when it began 
to be viewed as composed of units of force did it become 
useful and open to an endless development. As an example 
of this we may cite the futile and unprogressive study of 
the nature of mind when conducted by the method of in- 
trospection, or looking at one's feelings, after the manner 
of philosophers preceding the last half century. Much 
was said and written by them, all to small purpose. Mind 
was as little disclosed as matter, and of neither was there 
much real knowledge. Introspection merely kept turning 
round and round in its own bushel-basket at home. But 
no sooner did mind begin to be studied as itself a form of 
matter, as an external object and a part of physiology, 
than light began to appear and knowledge to advance. Sig- 
nificant is it also, in this connection, that Mr. Spencer's 
luminous exposition of the composition of mind borrows its 
lucidity from the author's constant recurrence to the phe- 
nomena of matter and material action. It might indeed be 
called an exposition of mind considered as included in the 
forces of material nature. In other words, though he in- 
sists upon mind as being ultimately composed of units of 
feeling, he expounds it as if it were composed of units of 
force. 

And this is in fact the method to which all men of science 
are driven at last. Though consciousness gives only feel- 
ing as its experience, and perception as the result of feel- 
ing, and though this be asserted to be the internal and 
primary testimony of consciousness, yet no sooner is this 
proposition laid down than the barrenness of it begins to 
be felt, and the faithful internal psychologist is immediately 
hurried forth to say that these units of feeling appear also 



352 The Philosojjhy of Evolution. 

somehow as units of force in other connections, and must 
be treated as such in every use which is made of them in 
verifying truth or discovering knowledge. So that we may 
perhaps embolden ourselves at last to question the ultimate 
character of the feelings as such, since each of us has only 
a single witness to their existence, and that is his own con- 
sciousness; and we may rather regard these feelings as 
merely a subjective or special form of units of force, just 
as sound is a special form of units of motion. They seem 
to us at first to be units of feeling existing only in our- 
selves ; but in everybody else, these same feelings can only 
be observed as units of force, and the corrected statement 
would therefore appear to be that feeling is merely a trans- 
formed force. In other words, we correct our internal 
experience by the larger generalization of our external ex- 
perience and arrive at a basis which is at once universal 
and fruitful. We arrive at the true account of our feelings 
by an outside knowledge got through them, which, general- 
ized, shows that they are but one other form of the univer- 
sal units of force. Here at last we pass over from a barren 
introspective psychology to a fertile external universe, which 
includes the introspection as one of its countless manifesta- 
tions. 

Consciousness is thus found to be as misleading in its 
primitive reports about itself, as about most other things. 
Regarded from within it seems to be what is called a 
spiritual or immaterial faculty, moving about the spaces 
of the brain with the speed of light, and through the senses 
cognizing the universe. So subtle, quick, sure, lucid is it 
that nothing less than the attributes of a God are deemed 
sufficient to characterize its nature, and it is said to be " made 
in the image of God." But regarded from without, how 
different is its aspect. This Godlike apprehension is dis- 
covered to be absolutely dependent on a brain and various 
congeries of nerves, which are mere material substances. 
]STo brain, no consciousness ; and this fine, internal, lordly 
self-appreciation is reduced to the modest character of a 
function of a grey pulp, which the blow of a hammer or a 
failure of blood-supply can reduce in an instant to complete 
insensibility. 

The external observation thus corrects or even subverts 
the internal testimony. The apparently immaterial mind 
is found to hang upon the material brain as the odor of a 



The Philosophy of Evolution. 353 

rose hangs to the flower. Both are a sort of exhalation. 
And the changes in that brain, nnder various environments, 
embody the whole immense variety of modern knowledge, 
whose works in the world are but a magnified magic-lantern 
picture of slight alterations of grey brain-matter within. 
The solidity and certainty with which this various knowl- 
edge verifies itself in practice gives the strongest possible 
proof of the correctness of the premises from which it all 
springs, viz., that units of consciousness are more properly 
estimated when regarded under their corrected form as 
units of force, than under their primary form of units of 
feeling. 

Perhaps both of these units may be best harmonized in 
one unity as forms of motion, as most ably set forth by 
Mr. Eaymond S. Perrin in his book on " The Eeligion of 
Philosophy." Mr. Perrin's criticism of Mr. Spencer's posi- 
tion seems to have striking validity, and to demolish the 
necessity for supposing some "Unknowable Eeality" back 
of all knowledge, on which Mr. Spencer so stoutly insists. 
Motion, as the dynamical aspect of matter, seems to furnish 
all the materials necessary to compose the universe. Matter 
in motion becomes the fountain of all things, and thought 
is but brain in motion, as life is but atoms in motion, and 
knowledge is simply an active participation in the infinite 
motion of the universe. 

But if one be inclined to insist upon the testimony of 
his own individual consciousness, and to posit mind as im- 
material because he feels it to be so, we can only bring to 
bear against him the fact that in so doing he plants himself 
upon one single experience — his own — against all the 
rest of his knowledge, which is that of observation criti- 
cised in detail by all that o.thers know, and the whole course 
of nature in its daily movement. It takes but a moment's 
reflection to see that this last accumulation of testimony 
affords a basis for certainty of a universal character, such 
as never can be afforded by the weak testimony of our 
single consciousness, which is and must always remain 
isolated and alone to each one of us. It was dependence upon 
this which led the world of men in a fire-fly dance after 
phantoms through ages, -and still leads most tribes. It is 
this which gives us a Chinese civilization in one place and 
a Hindoo in another, and Feejis in a third. It is this which 
gives us ten thousand sects and cranks of every hue. But 



354 The Philosophy of Evolution. 

a distrust of individual consciousness, on the other hand, 
forces us to the wide comparisons of modern science, and 
the trustworthy conclusions on which all instructed men 
agree. And on this the Philosophy of Evolution rests, — 
not on what feeling says, but upon what corrected feeling 
finds to be true of the units of force. 

Of course this doctrine is downright materialism ; but 
then the doctrine of Evolution seems to many and probably 
really is materialistic to the core. Nor need this be deemed 
strange when we recall that this Philosophy was first dis- 
covered in the material world. It was found among the 
fowls of the air and the beasts of the field. It was cradled 
in the manger where cattle were feeding. It had for its 
nurses the naturalists, and it was brought up at the hearth- 
stone of physical science. And its stronghold and play- 
ground is still the material world. Because it places suns 
and planets in their orbits without hands, because it arranges 
the strata of the earth without design, because it traces the 
genesis of crystal, plant, animal and man, step by step 
without break and without miracle, it is accepted, and only 
because it does so. Were it not for its incontestable fa- 
miliarity with the history and ways of material nature, the 
spiritualists would long ago have remanded it to the dirt 
from whence it sprang. But it holds to its visible facts, 
snaps its fingers at metaphysical disproofs, and riots in its 
tangible demonstrations, now become so profuse and all- 
convincing. It finds no need for ratiocination, for here is 
the daily process of nature repeating its propositions and 
enforcing its philosophy upon all men. And if there is 
any work of God which is his incontestably, it is this same 
Nature which furnishes such proofs to Evolution, and sus- 
tains its head amid the querulous complaints of idealists, 
spiritualists and dreamers of every feather. 

But having been so born, of materialistic parentage, 
nursed by materialistic students, reared among materialistic 
studies, and crowned by materialistic proofs, it seems hardly 
likely that it can now be sustained in any other than ma- 
terialistic relations. Vain is it to try, as some do, to marry 
it now into the fine old family of spiritualism* in order to 
give it credit with minds still loyal to the old opinions, and 
ready to fight to the death for the old flag which has flaunted 



* The word Spiritualism is here used to denote the advocacy of Spirit as an 
immaterial somewhat, distinct from Matter. 



The Philosophy of Evolution. 355 

over so many desperate battle-fields where nothing was won 
but wounds and death. The Napoleon of a new era, it can- 
not usefully mix its fresh blood with the outworn royal 
Austrian of ignorant days. 

And truly, that the evolutionary philosophy is material- 
istic is, to my mind, nothing against it. Nor is it that I 
have any special antipathy toward the opposing idealistic 
or spiritualistic hypothesis. The only interest I have in 
either depends simply upon their truth and usefulness, but 
especially upon their usefulness. I am willing to receive 
any benefits from any source, and if spiritual or idealistic 
philosophies have anything to give, I am glad to avail my- 
self of their help. But they have held sway over man for 
ages without adding serious advantages to him. They pre- 
vailed in Christian countries to the exclusion of all mate- 
rialism up to the beginning of this century, and seem to 
have misused this time greatly. They did not arrest war,, 
nor banish slavery, nor diminish intemperance, nor check 
bigotry, nor abate superstition, nor prevent persecution or 
tyranny. In fact, while they were prevailing the world 
dragged on, weltering in miseries, the prey of plague, pesti- 
lence and famine, a coward before ghosts and fairies, the 
easy victim of every natural accident, servile to kings,, 
priests and sorcerers, and devastated by perpetual fears. 
There was small progress in thought, slow advance in knowl- 
edge, fanciful standards of proof, little stability in propo- 
sitions, slight discoveries in the methods of Nature. One 
reads the records of those bewildered and disputatious ages 
with astonishment that men could ever have been content 
with such futilities and barrenness. Spiritualistic theories 
were lifting their heads on all sides like a ring of serpents, 
each hissing its contradictions and anathemas at the others. 
There was little enough in the results of this devotion to 
idealistic fantasies to make one desire a restoration of its 
reign. 

How much thinking, — how little welfare ! Would it 
have added any great benefit to the world if most of the 
questions respecting the Trinity, the nature of the soul,, 
the nature of duty, the exact authority of conscience, the 
nature of space and time, or the like, had ever been satis- 
factorily settled ? Scarcely ! for it is of these questions, 
pre-eminently, that Lessing's remark is true, that the pur- 
suit of truth is better than the attainment of it. There 



356 The Philosophy of Evolution. 

was and is but little in the questions excepting the value of 
the discussion of them as sharpeners of the intellect, — the 
same empty-handed benefit which is noisily claimed for 
the mediaeval college curriculum of to-day, on which our 
youth are still tediously trained. Were it not better to have 
done with futilities ? Why go on whipping for trout in 
streams long since robbed clean of fish ? 

It is therefore with impatience that one hears the reiter- 
ated lament of public teachers and preachers over the ten- 
dencies of the age towards Evolution and its materialistic 
ideas. One would imagine, to listen to these wailers, that 
there was something blighting in materialism ; that its 
marked increase , during the last thirty years had been at- 
tended with great injuries to the human race. Whereas, 
if one will only consider the matter fairly, this last period 
has seen more advance in human well-being than all the 
last 2,000 years before it. Materialism has prevailed, and 
has made a new world out of a sad and worn-out one. The 
progress has been in material forms, in railroads and tele- 
graphs, in cotton-gins and steam-driven machineries, in an 
immense increase of wealth and luxury, in books and news- 
papers, in applied science and philosophy, which makes 
man handier, shrewder, more industrious, — averse to war, 
tyranny, superstition, narrow-mindedness, gloom, disorder 
and poverty. 

If materialism has so many advantages to confer, why 
should we be afraid of it ? Why should we not rather be 
afraid of that spiritual philosophy which spent two thou- 
sand years in discussing the nature of God and the soul, 
and human destiny generally, and duty as an abstraction, 
leaving mankind meanwhile hungry and cold and naked, 
the prey of disease, and the prisoner of physical and moral 
ills ? And what insistent and blind folly it is to be warn- 
ing the age against the dangers of a materialism whose 
highest word has proved to have more good sense and clear 
light in it than ever fell to the lot of the best idealistic 
discussion that literature records, from Plato down to James 
Martineau ! Why go on cultivating the profitless sands of 
Sahara, when the hills and valleys of Materialism already 
rustle with the corn and vines whose fruits are for the 
gladdening of the nations ? 

Even from a spiritualist's point of view this material 



The Philosophy of Evolution. 357 

philosophy is more profitable than spiritual methods. For 
the spiritualist's clamor about duties and high aims and 
altruistic living, and the like, is best met and satisfied by 
materialistic methods. It may easily be shown that the 
enormous intercourse of nations and continents produced 
by modern commerce has done more to promote these vir- 
tues of toleration and charity than the apothegms of Epic- 
tetus and the sermons of Chrysostom. A merchant-ship 
bears more than its cargo of meats or grains or goods ; it 
bears also the good-will and friendly regard of those who 
. trade with each other for gain. The armies of the Chris- 
tian Powers do not so well defend those Powers against 
their enemies as do the commercial relations of their sub- 
jects one with another. And if the meddling, selfish dynas- 
ties were abolished, and all custom-houses as well, com- 
merce would, far more than benevolent sentiments, make 
one peaceful confederacy of German, Russian, Frenchman, 
Italian and Spaniard, in less than a century. 

So also the steam-engine, by facilitating travel, has done 
more to destroy bitter distinction of race and religion than 
devotion to ideal questions could do in seons of time. For, 
in the first place, idealistic discussions can touch but few, 
being the pursuit of the learned ; and in the second place, 
personal contact with strange peoples and other religions 
dissolves prejudice as the sun dissolves dew. By reason of 
travel, the false and bitter slanders of one nation on another, 
of one church on another, have been disproved and de- 
stroyed. 

And a similar moral benefaction has been conferred by 
the mere multiplication of books and newspapers by the 
material printing-press. It is not possible for vested 
wrongs, for ancient and established ignorances, to maintain 
their places before the merciless fire of the daily papers. 
No artillery has such precision and range as the batteries 
of the Hoe press. No adjurations to do justice and love 
mercy have or can have one-half the power to realize their 
desire as these engines of attack on injustice have to compel 
both to be done. How many rogues have they brought to 
justice, how many crimes searched out, how many prevented, 
how many good causes established ! How long could a Czar 
maintain his Siberian horrors under the steady exposure of 
a daily press, repeating its incessant denunciations day by 



358 ' The Philosophy of Evolution. 

clay within his dominions ? And the press is the child of 
materialism. It prints its sheets for gain. In the dialect 
of the street, it is pushed to make money. 

In the uses of machinery, too, we may vaunt the praises 
of materialism in its plainest aspect. Mr. Matthew Arnold, 
in his pleasant way, depreciates our devotion to machinery, 
and would rather have us use the freedom of the spirit as 
the better method. And he attacks the whole manner of 
modern advance, and sings the praises of mere culture, — ■ 
" hearing and reading the best things there are going," as 
the Greeks of Plato's time are falsely supposed to have 
been doing for the most part. But it is quite certain, to 
anyone who has an open eye to the world, that machinery 
has clone more to transform the world to something like 
Plato's ideal Republic, in one century, than all the unme- 
chanical centuries for twenty-two hundred years had done 
before. Machineries of steel and wood create machineries 
of moral and spiritual movement as well, and furnish irre- 
sistible agencies to promote public virtue such as never 
before existed; and the more machinery, the wider spread 
is virtue. Who ever heard of a savage tribe, without ma- 
chinery as they are, as able to do anything worth doing 
except for mischief and destruction ? Mr. Arnold himself 
remained but as the "wandering voice" of the cuckoo in 
the glades of society, because his ideas could not organize 
a machinery for their propagation among mankind at large. 
Material embodiments are more than lofty expressions, and 
the church itself is great, more by its machinery, than by 
its ideas. A new machine for traveling by telegraph would 
enlarge the human mind more rapidly than all the colleges 
and book-learned authors in Christendom can do. 

Machinery forces men to become exact, punctual, regu- 
larly industrious, and sober. It compels them to study the 
properties of materials, to learn new truth constantly, and 
conform themselves to it. Men become more observant 
under its tuition. The commonest factory-girl has her dull 
and aimless mind somewhat quickened and focused by the 
precision of its work and the exactitude it demands of her. 
It turns the vagrant savage into a thoughtful artisan, makes 
an Ericsson, an Edison, a Bessemer, an Eifel, possible, and 
is so far from degrading men to its level that it raises them 
immeasurably. Think of saying that a Digger Indian is 
degraded to the level of a Corliss Engine ! The engine is 



The Philosophy of Evolution. 359 

already far his superior, and worth more to humanity. 
Machinery always elevates its employers. 

See how Materialism also makes men more truthful than 
Spiritualism. When men can be brought to an exact bar, 
and proved to be false, they are perforce more guarded and 
careful in their statements. Such a tedious falsehood as 
that of the Roman church, that bread and wine are the true 
body and blood of Christ, which has debased the minds of 
believers for ages, could not hold its sway for an hour 
under a materialistic philosophy. No more could the Pla- 
tonic doctrine that ideas have real existence outside of the 
brain. Men do not attempt to lie in mathematics, except 
when they have some spiritual theory to maintain. 

So, too, we may sing the praises of a materialistic philos- 
ophy in that it absorbs the energies of the age in the pur- 
suit of wealth. Never before was mankind so well engaged. 
It is better to build passenger steamers than men-of-war. 
It is better to build factories than cathedrals. It is better 
to build railways than armories. It is better to develop 
mines than to promote missions. Men are seldom or never 
so well engaged as in making money decently. Six days 
are not too much for profitable labor, though one day be 
enough for worship, even according to Moses. 

Why, then, should we hear, from our more spiritual 
friends, a great outcry against this excellent pursuit ? For 
it is easily seen that, since the world began, mankind was 
never so well engaged in general as it is at the present 
day. " The mad race for riches " leads to enterprise, edu- 
cation, good health and long life. It keeps men out of 
mischief and crime, it covers the earth with great cities 
and the water with great ships, it spans the rivers with 
bridges and fills the air with voices of intelligence, it makes 
famine impossible, and binds with fetters of self-interest 
the bloody wolves of war. Whatever is good among men 
is largely the effect of wealth, whether it is reckoned in 
material goods or the advances of charity, peace, justice, 
science, art, or politics. And the wide difference between 
our own peace-loving age and its gainful occupations, and 
the quarrelsome and destructive ages before, is chiefly due 
to the fact that now men are all seeking wealth through in- 
dustry, instead of advancing religion by persecution, or 
patriotism by war, or politics by lies and force, or power 
by intrigues and assassinations. 



360 The Philosophy of Evolution. 

Friends of the spiritual philosophies who exhort us to 
think more of their vague propositions, and to devote our- 
selves to God, immortality and duty, should reflect upon 
the awful miseries which befell those who formerly were 
devoted to such pursuits, neglecting their bodies and worldly 
interests the while, till a horror of great confusion overtook 
them like a flood, and swept them down the wreck-filled 
current to ignorance and death. There has never been a 
better age than the present, since man has written history; 
and the simple reason is that man has now become materi- 
alistic in his aims, — has turned from the bloodless spectres 
which he formerly pursued to active care for mere flesh and 
blood, to houses and lands and' inventions and enterprises 
and splendor and display, and whatever makes life more 
fruitful and more abundant in material goods. 

Materialism, which is represented as a flood that threatens 
to drown all higher impulses, proves to be rather a Nile- 
inundation, whose waters bear the fertilization of humanity. 
And yet medievalists would have us return to the dreary 
pursuits of the spirit, where men wandered for centuries 
living on manna and water ! 

The opponents of Materialism, in their devotion to spirit- 
ual philosophies, display many curious moral obliquities cal- 
culated to impair a mere materialist's confidence in their prin- 
ciples ; — as where we see them eager to sacrifice hekatombs 
of other men, and human welfare, to the establishment of 
their ideal visions. Look, for instance, at the idealist, 
Tennyson, who voices in his " In Memoriam " the tenderest 
and most reverent sentiment of the age respecting God, 
duty and immortality, and afterwards lets himself rave, in 
" Maud," to praise and glorify the multitudes of blameless 
youth slain in that worthless and even then antiquated bar- 
barity, the Crimean War, — because " Gods's just wrath would 
be wreaked on a giant liar," and "a peace that was full of 
wrongs and shames " broken up in the awful carnage of 
battle. As if Ave should say it is better for men to kill 
each other in rage and hatred than to cheat each other for 
gain. As if murder was not by far the greater • crime ! — 
even if one does call it war and treat it to the luxury of 
poetry. Materialism looks at things quite differently and 
does not exhort us to begin killing men as a better pursuit 
than cheating them. Materialism has its faults, but it 



The Philosophy of Evolution. 361 

seldom loses it head or waxes enthusiastic over crimes 
greater than those it attempts to cure. 

So much then, we may say in reply to those who are 
afraid of Evolution because it is a materialistic philosophy. 
As the immense body of modern knowledge, in all its vast 
variety, is knowledge of the properties and actions of 
matter, it can be safely left to defend itself. That man- 
kind will ever leave it to go back to the groping leadership 
of metaphysics or the pursuit of the elusive mirage of so- 
called spiritual truth, there is not the remotest possibility. 
Like the statue of Liberty in our glorious bay, the material- 
istic philosophy of Evolution will lift up its electric torch 
over unnumbered generations of the future, scattering the 
white light of its all-illuminating truth over land and o'er 
sea, and over the ever increasing knowledge and happiness 
of all wise and free nations. 



362 The Philosophy of Evolution. 

ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 
Mr. Raymond S. Perrin : — 

When asked to criticise a lecture upon the Philosophy of Evo- 
lution, to he delivered by Mr. Starr H. Nichols, I anticipated, in 
accepting, a pleasure, because I knew the lecturer was capable of 
dealing with the subject. I knew that he had familiarized him- 
self with the general logical results of the doctrine of universal 
filiation or descent, so firmly established by the investigations of 
Charles Darwin; and I knew also that he had applied this doctrine 
to the phenomena of mind or consciousness, which is pre-eminently 
the realm of Philosophy. I must confess that I have been disap- 
pointed. The lecture has closed without any explanation of the 
nature of mind.* The argument has been confined to a very inter- 
esting account of the materialistic theory of society. The human- 
izing influences of modern industrial development have been 
pointed out. We have been shown how industrial progress pro- 
duces social progress. The lecturer has also emphasized the uni- 
versality of physical law, pointing out how it repeats its operations 
with divine uniformity in all time and space, bringing into inter- 
dependence and into fundamental similiarity all the systems of 
the universe, and he has declared boldly and distinctly that the 
prime power in all this is not spiritual but material. We can only 
admire the courage of the lecturer in making this assertion, for 
the reason that it is so unpopular. The great majority of relig- 
iously inclined persons are repelled by the assertion that matter 
can explain everything to us. They feel instinctively that such a 
philosophy is coarse, that it lacks sublimity, and as philosophy is 
largely a matter of definition I must confess to a sympathy with 
the religionists in their aversion to materialism. For matter is 
not the ultimate fact, it is only an aspect, the statical or restful 
aspect of universal activity, or life, and if a name must be given 
to the philosophy of evolution which shall distinguish it, once for 
all, from the religious or supernatural systems, I think that name 
should be the vital not the materialistic philosophy. For Life is 
the universal fact, and Evolution teaches us that all phenomena, 
whether physical or spiritual, are forms of life. This vital prin- 
ciple is not unknowable, for it is the simplest of all experiences ; 
it is the first element of knowledge. In mathematics it is called 
motion, in physics force, in biology life, in psychology mind, in 

*In justice to Mr. Perrin, it should be remarked that to the lecture in its 
present form, as revised by the author before printing, this criticism would, 
not strictly apply. 



The Philosophy of Evolution. 363 

religion spirit, or intelligence, or God. All these diverse terms 
involve ultimately the union of space and time or of the infinite 
and the absolute. The chief advantage of the Philosophy of Evo- 
lution is that it can explain the connecting link between mind and 
matter, by bringing into interdependence intellectual and physical 
phenomena, by explaining the point of contact between the spirit 
and nature. This harmony of thought and feeling is what the 
religionist most longs to comprehend, for it alone can bring peace 
to the mind, it alone can dispel the contradictions which arise 
between the belief in a divine love and the evidence of a suffering 
humanity. The ultimate analysis which harmonizes the meaning 
of our most general terms is a logical fact, which appeals only to 
a class of specialists, but this analysis, so necessary to philosophy, 
can be explained in the language of every-day life. There is no 
limit to its applications and to its simplifications, and it will be 
found to be the key to the Philosophy of Evolution. In Language 
we have the connecting link between the intellectual and the phys- 
ical. Language is a natural development, beginning in rude sounds 
and gestures, and progressing in perfectly comprehensible steps 
from the expression of concrete experiences to that of general 
principles. In this vast development, resulting in the creation of 
literature and science and philosophy, there is no interposition of 
the miraculous or the supernatural, and all the mysteries and su- 
perstition of religion can be shown to result from infelicities of 
speech, the lispings of primitive races, which have reached us 
through tradition; the efforts of undeveloped language to voice 
the abstract truths of life. The greatest feat of language is the 
•discovery of a single term to represent divine unity, the formation 
of the ultimate generalization. The Philosophy of Evolution has 
had its beginning in the great discovery of Darwin, who revolu- 
tionized zoology by establishing the mutability of species, by 
proving that organic life is a single family, developed by natural 
agencies from a few primordial types. This theory he completed 
by including in zoological classifications the species Man. He 
neither attempted to show the filiation of the lower organic activ- 
ities with chemical and physical actions on the one hand, nor on 
the other to show the relations of higher organic life with the 
phenomena of mind. Darwin, therefore, was not a student of the 
mind. He was a naturalist as distinguished from a philosopher. 
It is to such men as Meyer and Helmholtz, who discovered the 
correlation and equivalence of the physical forces, and to such 
men as Spencer and Lewes, who have established the interdepend- 
ence of the organic and the mental forces, that we owe the exten- 



364 The Philosophy of Evolution. 

sion of Darwin's great theory of the Descent of Man into a philos- 
ophy of evolution; and I think that in neglecting the mental 
aspects of the subject, the lecturer has lost an opportunity of 
making a symmetrical presentation of his great theme. In the 
narrow limits of this criticism, it is possible only to suggest the 
vast proportions of the theory of evolution. For humanity the 
central fact of evolution is the nature of language. In language 
we have the connecting link between mind and matter, the agency 
which has raised man to the position he holds above other related 
orders of living beings. Language is thought, language is sympa- 
thy, language is interaction. In comprehending its nature we 
command the true perspective of existence, we reach the zenith of 
intellectual life. Its categories of perception and expression are 
universal. Gravitation and affinity and love all lead to and explain 
it; even in the cold, clear atmosphere of thought its metaphors 
and symbols bear out the endless analogy. The verb, the symbol 
of activity, is the soul of language, the central fact in every sen- 
tence, and all the other parts of speech denote simply the times 
and places of the action or being. The sentence is the molecule 
of thought ; it is complete in itself, containing all the elements of 
being. It is the sentence which transforms facts into symbols, it 
is the sentence which enables physical life to rise into intelligence 
or spirituality. This is the ultimate analysis. It shows how social 
development is primarily expressed in the growth of language, 
which renders mental and moral development possible; It shows 
us that mind and spirit are not ultimate facts, but aspects of Life,, 
and that Life means Evolution. 

Dr. Eobekt G. Eccles: — 

In the lecture and the criticism we have an illustration of the 
danger of looking exclusively on one side of a problem. The ma- 
terialistic mind looks only at the static side, and sees that alone ; 
the spiritualistic mind looks only at the dynamic side, and fancies 
that is all-inclusive. Mr. Nichols and Mr. Perrin represent two 
kinds of evolutionists: the one materialistic, repudiating the ideal; 
the other idealistic, repudiating the material. Each has a half- 
truth, and each needs the other to supplement and complete his 
own view. But the Unknowable is the true basis of the whole 
subject. The philosophical doctrine of the Unknowable is not 
concerned with knowledge that can ever be known. The phenom- 
enal universe is infinitely knowable, but gives us no hint as to the 
essential nature of Absolute Being. As the scientific problems 
lying at the basis of this discussion are largely questions of physi- 



The Philosophy of Evolution. 365 

ology and physics, one needs to be a physician in order to compre- 
hend them. Matter in its outer aspects is knowable, in its ultimate 
aspects is unknowable. Matter and force are not what they appear 
to be to the senses. A feather is brushed across our hand. We 
say, "The feather tickles." But this is not true. The tickle is in 
us, not in the feather. Color is not in the objects we see around 
us, it is the effect produced upon our brain by an inconceivably 
rapid vibration of the rays of light proceeding from the object. 
Sound does not exist apart from the hearer; if there were no hearer 
there would be no sound. We can acquire knowledge of how the 
universe affects us, but not of the universe itself. We know that 
there is more than matter and motion in the universe. There is 
Mind and Being, which cannot be explained in terms of matter or 
motion. As to the identity of evolution in other worlds with that 
in our world, assumed by Mr. Nichols, the theory of evolution, 
which shows that all things tend continually to differentiation, 
requires that there should be diversity instead of identity in the 
development of life on other planets. 

Me. Dudley Blanchaed: — 

The evolution of mechanics is one of the most important phases 
of the whole subject under discussion, and I am glad to see it at 
last touched upon, by the present lecturer. I rise merely, as one 
interested in mechanical pursuits, to thank him for what he has 
said upon this topic. 

Dr. Lewis G. Janes: — 

As to the beneficent character of the material progress of which 
Mr. Nichols has spoken, I am wholly in agreement with him. 
That this, however, is all there is of the Philosophy of Evolution, 
I cannot agree. In all this discussion, Ave are questioning about 
what we can know. Now, fundamental to all such considerations, 
is the question : What is an act of knowing f What is conscious- 
ness ? If wholly a subjective process, unrelated to material con- 
ditions, then it is difficult to escape from the conclusions of the 
Idealist. If wholly a product of material conditions, then we must 
follow Mr. Nichols. But if, as I believe, it is subjecto-objective, 
testifying at once to a thought-process which cannot be expressed 
in material terms, and to the reality of an external material world, 
then we must either rest in this Dualism as an ultimate and unex- 
plainable fact, or go forward to a monism based upon the doctrine 
of the Unknowable. Mr. Nichols says we see thought in other 
men only as brain-motion. Now, I never have been so fortunate 



366 The Philosophy of Evolution. 

as to see the brains of other men think. I should like to have him 
explain how this can be done. To me, as to Spencer, Huxley, and 
other evolutionists, the passage from the physics of the brain to 
the phenomena of thought is something inconceivable. 

Me. Nichols: — 

Dr. Janes' s position seems to be fruitless and unsatisfactory, 
because he never gets to anything ultimate. He must go on and 
on, always questioning and never getting an answer, instead of 
being satisfied to begin somewhere. It is useless to start on such 
a quest. We can know nothing of the ultimate nature of conscious- 
ness. [Db. Janes: It seems that you are at last getting to the 
Unknowable yourself.] Me. Nichols : Your Unknowable. What 
I meant to say Avas that consciousness is truly known just as other 
things are, when its internal feeling is criticised and corrected by 
external observation and generalized upon both. Then it seems 
to appear that thought as observed in others than ourselves is 
simply a motion of the brain, as digestion is a motion of the 
stomach. The Spencerians (and Dr. Eccles will pardon my saying 
it) are in a hopeless state of confusion over the Unknowable, and 
their philosophy of knowledge is built on an assumption of igno- 
rance. The position that there is such a thing as mind independ- 
ent of brain is an unverifiable one. Dr. Eccles said that one 
ought to be a physician to thoroughly grasp the truth of Evolution 
— and come out where he does. Well, there is Dr. Maudsley; he 
has some reputation as a doctor, and he is a materialist. What I 
meant in regard to evolution in other worlds, was that the method 
of evolution is the same throughout the universe, though the ma- 
terials and special forms may be different. If we are willing to ac- 
cept the ultimates as they present themselves to us, we need not 
chase the infinite. Those ultimates we know if we can know any- 
thing, but if we do not know them then we can know nothing and 
there is no use in thinking. When we step beyond those ultimates 
we land in "chaos and old night," where is nothing but dreams 
and an aimless metaphysical whirl. 



THE EFFECTS OF EVOLUTION ON 
THE COMING CIVILIZATION 



BY 



MINOT J. SAVAGE 

Author of "The Religion of Evolution," "The Morals of 
Evolution," etc., etc. 



COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED 

IN CONNECTION WITH ESSAY XV. 

Graham's Creed of Science and The Social Problem ; Thompson's 
The Problem of Evil ; Savage's Social Problems ; Heber Newton's 
The Social Problem; W. I. Gill's Evolution and Progress; Francis 
Power Cobbe's Broken Lights : The Present and Future of Religious 
Faith; James Cotter Morison's The Service of Man. 



THE EFFECTS OF EVOLUTION ON THE 
COMING CIVILIZATION.* 



If one but knew what the " Coming Civilization " is to" 
he, it would then be a comparatively easy task to note the 
processes by which it is to be brought about. It is not an 
uncommon thing for people with an imaginative turn of 
mind to jump to some alluring conclusion, and then, with 
too little regard for facts and natural tendencies, to seek 
for some short cut to the goal of their foregone conclusion. 
And if their millennium is anything more than a pleasant 
dream with which to amuse an idle hour, they not only 
grow very impatient of natural growth, but perhaps also 
somewhat violent in their dealing with all who do not agree 
with them. Plato's "Republic," Sidney's "Arcadia" and 
More's "Utopia" may stand as specimens of ideal dream- 
worlds. Their authors, however, whether they really 
believed in them or not, did not intend to fight for them or 
in any way urge them as immediate reforms. The thing 
to be noted about them is that they were arrived at by a 
purely a priori process, not deduced as the result of any 
observable tendencies in human history. The same is true 
also of the "kingdom of heaven" which Jesus preached. 
It does not follow, however, that these dreams were useless. 
Man is the only animal, so far as we know, that is haunted 
by an ideal. And the ideal not only hints the possible, 
but it also serves the purpose of creating a divine discontent 
with imperfect conditions and of stimulating effort towards 
the attainment of something better. One may not realize 
his dream ; but he will attain something better because of 
his dream and of his struggle to grasp it. 

But these dreams are not all ancient ones. They are 
more in number, and are more operative in the sphere of 
practical endeavor to-day than ever before in the history 
of mankind. They are not only dreams, but they are the 
motive-forces of crusades that have their heroes and their 
martyrs. The air is resonant with prophet calls and rallying- 

* Copyright, 1889, by The New Ideal Publishing Co. 



■370 The Effects of Evolution 

•cries. Let us note a few of thein. chiefly for the imme- 
diate purpose of noting how little agreement there is as to 
the nature of the "Promised Land" that is sought. Of 
course no agreement can be expected on the part of a priori 
theorizers. And where there is no agreement, of course 
there can be no common effort towards a single end ; so en- 
thusiasm and effort are wasted. It ought to teach us some- 
thing then to note the confusion of the disagreement. If 
only an end and a method could be settled on, so that there 
might be " a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together," 
— in that case something might be hoped for. 

In the religious world there is hardly any recognition of 
Evolution as having anything to do with the problem. The 
churches have got only to the point of reluctantly confess- 
ing that possibly it may have to be accepted as true. But, 
instead of putting its truth to any practical use, they are 
chiefly engaged in plans for making it possible for Spencer 
and Darwin to keep house with Moses, provided the neces- 
sity is made to appear. They are all agreed in looking for 
the coming of the "kingdom of heaven"; but, though 
they have an "infallible" authority on the subject, they 
are as hopelessly "at sea" as is all the rest of the world. 
They agree neither as to time nor end nor method. The 
Pope "knows" that the only hope for man is in his own 
supremacy. All the social evils of the age are the direct 
results of wicked revolt against his authority. On the 
other hand, the Protestants attribute most of the evils of 
the past to this same Pope, and are in a state of intermit- 
tent panic lest his old-time power be regained. Little can 
at present be expected in this direction then, except that 
both Eomanist and Protestant will keep on preaching a 
theory of man, his origin, nature, condition and destiny, 
that science has thoroughly exploded. Until facts are 
accepted and realities dealt with no results can be ration- 
ally even sought after. 

One of the most striking and interesting dreamers on 
the religious side is Count Tolstoi. The old and common 
claim is that Jesus is the one who has "brought life and 
immortality to light" ; and so the Christian ideal has been 
generally located in the other world. But, most curiously, 
while Tolstoi claims to be the one true interpreter of Jesus 
in the modern world, if he does not deny he at least ignores 
the future life, and proposes to seek his kingdom of heaven 



on the Coming Civilization. 371 

here and now. To this end he would abolish all forms of 
force ; for the central principle of his Christianity is non- 
resistance. He would have no governments then, no armies, 
no distinctions of nationality, no legal contracts, no com- 
pulsory education, no public building of roads even. He 
would have no one lead any course of life that would neces- 
sitate disagreeable work on the part of any other. So he 
even discards linen shirts ; though why it is any less dis- 
agreeable to wash woolen ones is not quite apparent. He 
regards modern civilization as all a mistake. Science, philos- 
ophy, literature, art, all are "vanity." The contented mind 
and the inoffensive life of the common worker for the com- 
mon wants of every day — this is his ideal. 

I spent a Sunday afternoon and evening last summer* 
with Mr. William Morris, the poet, the artist, the Socialist,. 
of London. I went out with him and stood by his side 
while he preached to a crowd on the street against the 
wrongs of the existing order of society. His artist soul is 
offended by the ugliness and discomfort of our present 
civilization. He has heard the cry of the London poor. 
Said he to me, " There are five hundred thousand people in 
London who do not know what they are going to eat to- 
morrow." This against a background of barbaric and use- 
less splendor on the part of the nobility and the rich ! It is 
some sort of socialistic rearrangement of the world which 
he seeks, that shall make labor once more the joy of an artist 
in his work, instead of the drudgery of a beast of burden 
whipped on by the lash of hunger. He rejoices in every 
sign of what he regards as the increasing hardship of the 
present system, in hope of that day when the people will 
bear it no longer. 

One of the most completely wrought-out and fascinating 
dreams of the future with which I am acquainted is told by 
Mr. Edward Bellamy, in his book, entitled " Looking Back- 
ward." This is the ideal of State Socialism, or what is 
coming to be called Nationalism. The Nation owns every- 
thing and does everything. Nobody is rich and nobody is 
poor. With the certainty of abundant support in perpetu- 
ity, all motive for personal accumulation is taken away. 
All are educated ; and, though each works for the whole, 
and though all kinds of Avork are honorable, free play is 
still left for individual taste and personal ambition. It is 



372 The Effects of Evolution 

a wonderful picture, and one wishes it might be realized 
in so short a time as that which the book calls for. If 
only ideal states of society could be voted into existence, I 
would gladly start out on a campaign in favor of this. 

But the practical difficulty always is that the real people 
in the world are not the kind of people that the scheme 
requires, and they will not behave as you want them to, 
even for the sake of carrying out the most brilliant project. 
They are very much like the ducks in Mr. James Russell 
Lowell's story. I think he first told it to illustrate some 
such point as this. He says that his barber, having a 
scientific turn of mind, and having heard of the transmu- 
tation of species, got hold of the brilliant idea of changing 
the cheap and common duck into canvas-backs. These latter, 
being very expensive, he intended to sell for a high price 
and so make his fortune. Having learned, perhaps from 
Buckle, that almost everything depends on what one eats, 
he conceived the idea that by feeding his common ducks on 
celery he could work out his transformation and then retire 
from his humble trade. So he invested his small earnings 
in ducks and celery and fancied himself on the eve of suc- 
cess. But when Mr. Lowell next saw him he wore the 
downcast expression of one not altogether satisfied with 
the universe. And when asked as to his experiments, he 
put the result of his experience into words, — " I invested all 
my savings in ducks and celery. And now I don't know 
whether it would have turned them into canvas-backs or 
not, for the darned things ivouldnH eat it." 

That is just the trouble with many social theories. We 
work out on paper some clear and easy way of bringing in 
the millennium ; but, alas ! when we offer it to the people, 
— the real people in the streets and not the imaginary ones 
on paper, — "the darned things" wont behave as the suc- 
cess of our theory requires. 

I need not stop to mention Fourier and Karl Marx, the 
Shakers, the Oneida Community, and Brook Farm; the 
specimens I have given are enough for our purpose. They 
are all a priori experiments, not the natural results of 
growth. It will be noted also that some of the dreamers 
look towards Anarchy, the extreme of Individualism, while 
others look in precisely the opposite direction, towards So- 
cialism. But all of them, anarchistic or socialistic, have 
this one fatal defect in common, — that they are dreams, in 



on the Coming Civilization. 373 

the air, out of any visible or demonstrable relation with 
observed forces and tendencies of which they may be re- 
garded as the natural product. This is not a dead universe, 
but a live one ; and it is moving with tremendous power in 
certain definite directions. We can neither ignore this 
movement nor oppose it. Our only hope is in co-operation 
with it. If we are to build a paradise it must be out of 
existing materials and in accordance with the laws of forces 
already at work. The first thing then for us to do is to 
find out, if we can, which way the world is moving. If it 
is already moving downward, growing to worse (as some 
zealous reformers, like Tolstoi, assert), then we might as 
well give up the unequal contest. The Infinite is some- 
what larger than we are ; and I, for one, see no great hope 
in fighting it. But if it is on an upward track, then we 
may hopefully co-operate with it ; we may even hasten the 
coming of better days. Indeed, in the light of intelligent 
selection, we may attain results that otherwise would not 
come to pass at all. But it can only be by co-working with 
forces and tendencies inherent in the nature of things. 

I do not see how any intelligent believer in Evolution 
can despair. But if he be an intelligent believer, he will 
know that the first thing to be done is to find out which 
way things are tending. Before he indulges too much in 
dreaming, he will become a careful and reverent student of 
the past. 

If one wishes to find out which way a river is flowing, 
and into what larger body of water it will probably empty, 
he need not be able to find its fountain head, he need not 
trace it clear to the mouth. It will be enough to follow a 
large part of its main stream and to note the trend of the 
great mountain-chains that define its valley. He will thus 
be able to gain a scientific warrant for his opinion as to 
which way it is going. So we may know enough of the 
evolutionary stream to forecast its direction out yonder 
under the cloud and mist that hide from us what we call 
the future. Let us therefore now run over the main features 
of the past evolution of life on our earth. 

We need not try to uncover the beginning. Start with 
such horizontal forms of life as the worm and the fish. 
Very simple nervous systems had they, and very small 
brains. But embodied life begins to lift and climb. Through 
reptile and bird and mammal and anthropoid ape it struggles 



374 The Effects of Evolution 

to the perpendicular position. At last man appears. He 
stands on his feet ; he looks up to the sky. His lore-feet 
become hands and his cry a voice. His nervous system is 
immensely complex, and in brain-power he has left all com- 
petitors hopelessly behind. Physical evolution in his case 
has reached its limit, except that it goes on ever perfecting 
and refining the form already attained. The evolutionary 
force seized upon the brain. Though weaker and slower 
than others, though he could neither fly nor swim, though 
without tusk or horn or claw, he yet became able to outwit 
all his enemies, and make himself master of the inhabitants 
of earth not only, but of sea and air as well. From such 
low beginnings have been developed the high table-lands of 
our general modern intelligence; and this is over-topped 
by the mountainous peaks that cluster about and look up 
to such superior heights as are represented by the names 
of Praxiteles and Caesar and Cicero and Shakespeare and 
Mozart and Washington. 

But the force of evolution did not stop with intellect. 
It has climbed up into the moral. And to-day the ethical 
ideal is mightier than all muscle not only, but all brain. 
It dominates the nations. For to-day there is no king or 
cabinet that dares openly defy it. However selfish or evil 
the scheme may really be, its promoters must at least 
put on the semblance of zeal for the general good of hu- 
manity. 

And one more step is being taken. After a long contest 
with materialistic theories and tendencies, there is apparent 
a tremendous upheaval of the spiritual forces in man. It 
looks like an unfolding of spiritual tendencies and forces 
such as the world has never seen. 

Parallel with this general stream of progress that we 
have noted, are other streams, whose tendency can be as 
plainly seen. In his sexual relations man has advanced 
from practical promiscuity, such as is found among the 
lower animals, through polygamy, polyandry and many 
modifications of both of these, to monogamy. Politically 
he has advanced from the despotism of war-chiefs, through 
all types of monarchy, to the freedom of representative 
government, where it is recognized that all power inheres 
in and is derived from the popular will. 

Along with all these there has been observable an indus- 
trial tendency as well. At first the wants of man were 



on the Coming Civilization. 375 

very few, and each one provided for his own. The chief 
business of the early tribes was war, and the daily drudgery 
was left to the women. Then, as certain tribes grew stronger, 
they kept alive the prisoners taken in war and made them 
slaves. Under these circumstances it was natural for hand- 
labor to be regarded as degrading, fit only for slaves. And 
it followed from this that those who were not slaves but 
who were compelled to labor were looked on as but a little 
above the slavish rank. So they were shut off from the 
higher ranks of society as being low caste, or were serfs 
attached permanently to the soil. In either case, bound as 
they were by their necessities, without the means, even if 
they had the right, of moving from place to place, or of 
rising above the level on which they were born, they were 
practically but little better off than slaves. During the 
Middle Ages, the laborers, by their guilds and other asso- 
ciations, were able to lift themselves much above the posi- 
tion they occupied in the ancient world. And if agricultural 
laborers were practically tied to the soil, perhaps it was 
quite as well, for they then had no taste or fitness for travel, 
and so preferred the old-time associations. But when 
America was discovered a new era dawned for the common 
people. They became accustomed to the thought of change, 
while a wider contact with society, and acquaintance with 
other nationalities, developed new tastes, created more and 
higher wants, and so tended to lift them to a higher level 
of manhood. It is true that the laborers are not yet free. 
For while the wage-system is an immense advance on any- 
thing the world ever knew before, the man who must go 
into the market and sell all the hours of every day in order 
to live, of course cannot travel or study, or develop a taste 
for what are rightly called " the humanities," the higher 
sides of life. There must be some wealth, some leisure, 
for these things. 

To this point then the world has come. Those who 
allow their impatience at remaining evils to run away with 
their judgments, to the extent of asserting that the wage- 
earner's condition is growing worse instead of better, show 
one of two things : either that they are ignorant of the 
facts, or that their prejudice will not let them see them. 
This will appear plainly as we go on with our discussion. 

But the question now before us is as to what is the 
nest step. As preparatory to this, we need to recur for 



376 The Effects of Evolution 

a little to some of the dreams already referred to, and note 
their impractical nature. For when there is serious divis- 
ion of opinion as to which of several roads to take, much 
is gained in having it definitely settled as to which of 
them are impassable, and in setting up the sign, as a guide 
to all seekers, " No Thoroughfare.'''' For it is undoubtedly 
true that the larger part of the world's time and thought 
and money and enthusiasm is wasted in the endeavor to 
travel along roads that lead to nowhere-in-particular. Let 
us note, then, a few of the proposed " short-cuts " that are 
supposed by many to be the nearest way to the " Coming 
Civilization.*' 

1. Communism — the equal division of all existing 
wealth. The story goes that one of the disciples of this 
method for the abolition of poverty called one clay on 
Eothschild, and tried to bring this supposed duty home to 
his conscience. The Baron listened patiently, and then told 
him he was quite willing, and would begin with him. 
Whereupon, after figuring for a minute, he handed him out 
his share, which proved to be a little less than one shilling. 
There is no commoner mistake on the part of thoughtless 
people, who do not stop to apply the test of a small sum in 
arithmetic, than that which supposes that what is called a 
fair division of the world's goods would make everybody 
well-off . I suppose that, according to its population, Massa- 
chusetts is the richest State in America. But it is esti- 
mated that its total wealth, equally divided among all its 
inhabitants, would give only somewhere about five hundred 
dollars apiece all round. That figure is rather above than 
under the fact. It is clear, then, that we cannot all get rich 
in that way. 

And then experience has proved, over and over again, 
that about the worst average use you can make of money is 
to give it outright to the man who has not earned it. It 
is like putting a gun in the hands of a small boy who does 
not know how to use it. Neither himself nor his neighbors 
are safe. For a man has not wealth, in the true sense of 
that word, on account of what he has, but rather on account 
of what he is. 

Then, though all were started equal to-day, so far as the 
quantity of possessions was concerned, where would the 
equality be in a week ? The nature, the training, the 



on the Coming Civilization. 377 

•capacity of no one would be changed. The weak would still 
be weak, the dissipated would remain dissipated, the fool 
would continue a fool, while the strong, the self -controlled, 
the capable, would remain as they were before. The natural 
redistribution that would inevitably follow would rapidly 
bring back the old condition of affairs. There are thousands 
who have neither the aptitude for making money, nor for 
keeping it. While others, as Oliver Wendell Holmes says, 
if the world were burned up, would get rich in a week by 
the trade in potash. 

If, then, we wish to get ahead towards the " Coming Civ- 
ilization," we may as well leave that road alone. 

2. One of the most fascinating books of recent years is 
Mr. Henry George's "Progress and Poverty." When I 
laid it down, after a first reading, I felt as though the 
"kingdom of heaven" was so near that the only wonder 
was that humanity had not stumbled into it without know- 
ing. But a little study showed that his fundamental postu- 
late was false. Instead of the rich having grown richer, 
and the poor poorer, the hard facts are these : More persons 
are getting rich than ever before, but the percentage of 
profit that accrues to capital is constantly growing less. 
This may be overbalanced by an increasing quantity of 
business ; but the fact remains. While, so far as the poor 
are concerned, not only has the price of labor increased, both 
in England and America, during the last fifty years, but the 
purchasing power of a day's wages has increased at the 
same time. Mr George's diagnosis of the disease, then, is 
false, at the very outset. And, not only this, but the pan- 
acea he offers is even ludicrously inadequate. He Would 
have the government take possession of all ground-rents 
for the benefit of the people as a whole. This he claims 
would abolish poverty. He thinks it would pay all govern- 
ment expenses, and leave a large surplus for public works 
and improvements of every kind. But here again a little 
use of the arithmetic is worth a good deal of zealous talk. 
Taking the census of 1880 as a basis, it is easily found 
that the entire land-rent of the United States, if equally 
divided, would amount to about two cents a head per day. 
That is, it would reduce our present taxes about one-half. 
So if there were no other objections to Mr. George's plan, 
its utter inadequacy would be enough. I advise, therefore, 



378 The Effects of Evolution 

all eager travelers towards the "Coming Civilization" not 
to put too much trust in Mr. George's guide-board.* 

3. Let us turn next to Count Tolstoi's ideal country. 
As I survey it from the outside, and see there no science, 
no philosophy, no literature, no art, no music, no society, 
in spite of the fact that there is to be no more fighting and 
that everybody is to have something to eat, I confess that 
it looks to me singularly uninteresting. I am obliged to 
own that, even for the sake of escaping many evils, I do not 
want to go there. I will even go further and say that, if 
the world ever gets to be the realization of his dream, I 
shall be more than ever interested in flying-machines, in 
the hope that they may furnish means for emigration to 
some other planet. With the exception of the peace that 
he hopes for, his picture looks to me singularly like the old 
world in its condition of original barbarism. 

And then, even though this were not true, the fact that 
from the very beginning the world has been moving in pre- 
cisely the opposite direction, would seem to be a somewhat 
discouraging circumstance. Count Tolstoi believes in God. 
Now, God is either too weak to help himself, — in which 
case there is not much hope, — or else he does not hold the 
Count's views ; for, as I have said, for so long a time as we 
know anything about it, under the government of this same 
God, the whole drift of things has been the other way. I, 
for one, do not think there is much use in trying to fight 
against the whole tendency of the universe. So, whatever 
we may think of Tolstoi the novelist, I cannot regard his 
road towards the " Coming Civilization " as an open one. 

4. Another dream is that of Industrial Co-operation. 
From the beginning there has been competition ; and under 
competition has been reached whatever gain the world has 
made. But it is easy to make this battle of competition 
appear an ugly and anti-social one. And then, at first sight, 
it looks as though the profit that goes to the capitalist and 
the middle-man might be saved and turned over directly to 
labor. 

But let us look at it in another way. This ugly fact of 
battle, of competition, works badly only for producers or 
dealers in the same line of goods, and it works badly for them 

* But, granting all this to be true, still his ' ' Single-tax " idea may be an im- 
provement on our present methods. I have not studied this sufficiently to feel 
sure of my ground. 



on the Coming Civilization. . 379 

•only as producers or dealers. When you look at these pro- 
ducers or dealers as consumers — which they also are — it is 
decidedly for their advantage ; while on the other hand, it is 
wholly for the advantage of everybody else, and so for the 
vast majority. It is not then so bad as a superficial glance 
makes it out. 

Then again, competition cannot be escaped until the 
whole world becomes one vast co-operative society. Co- 
operative establishments would compete with each other; 
and though they were as wide as a nation, the nations would 
.still compete. 

It is also a fact worth study that, so far, all attempts in 
this direction have shown such weakness, and have so gen- 
erally failed, as to suggest some inherent defects in the 
method. And these defects are not far to find. In the 
first place, it requires a very large capital to-day to carry 
on any large business ; and the general run of wage-workers 
cannot furnish this capital. In the next place the chances 
of failure are great, and most workmen cannot afford to 
take these chances. For, under the wage system, the laborer 
is at least practically sure of his living, whether the capi- 
talist makes money or loses it. Under the other system 
he is sure of nothing. And again, in the third place, is 
another defect which alone is fatal. It requires a special, 
a rare ability and training, to manage a large business with 
success. This is apparent in the fact that about ninety-live 
per cent, of those who attempt to manage any business, 
whether large or small, fail in the attempt. There are in 
the country, at any one time, about as many business 
geniuses as there are military geniuses. What would be 
the chances of success in war, if generals were to be chosen 
by popular vote in the army, and to be subject to removal 
whenever the army was not satisfied ? So, in the manage- 
ment of great industrial concerns, the leader is found by a 
process of natural selection, and not by popular vote. The 
chances of being struck by lightning are many more than 
would be the chances of /the fittest man's being chosen by 
a body of co-operative workmen as the one to manage their 
affairs for them. Poor judgment, personal bias, envies, 
jealousies, impatience of delay, — these qualities of average 
human nature must be outgrown before this method can 
meet with any large success. So, at the entrance of this 



380 The Effects of Evolution 

road also, let us set up the sign, " No Thoroughfare " ; and 
look in some more practical direction. 

5. What shall we say of State Socialism or National- 
ism ? Only that while we can make it look very attractive 
on paper, we have as yet no experiments in that direction 
sufficiently successful to promise much of hope. The prin- 
ciple of Socialism is of course conceded. Every time we 
permit the government to put its hands in our pockets and 
take therefrom the smallest sum in the way of a tax; every 
time we submit to a war-necessity and concede the right of 
the State to compel a citizen into the army for the public 
good; in these, and in many other ways, we admit the 
supremacy of the general good over the individual. It is,. 
then, only a question of expediency, to be determined in 
the light of human experience. The battle between private 
property and State ownership is only a question as to 
which, in its practical working, will best subserve the public 
good. 

It is sometimes said the State manages the Post-Office 
Department, and does it for the whole people, honestly, 
efficiently, successfully ; and the question is asked as to 
why it might not work as well in all other directions. Two 
answers are ready. First, the Post-Office Department has 
never paid for itself, but has always been a drain on the 
public treasury. And, in the second place, the principal 
part of the postal-service is still in private hands, and is not 
the work of the government at all. All the government 
does is to collect and distribute. All the work of carrying,, 
and the fact that they can be carried so cheaply, is wholly 
a matter of private enterprise and private competition. So 
this is no example of what the government might do. I 
have often been inclined to think it might be well for the 
government to take control of at least the telegraphs and 
the railroads. But even here the way does not seem quite 
clear. Certain European governments do control a part or 
all of the railroads ; but I think I am right in stating that 
the cost of travel on them is higher than it is with us under 
our private ownerships and competitive system, — and if I 
wish to go to Chicago, it is not a question with me as to 
who owns the road, but as to what the owner is going to 
charge for taking me there. So I cannot help fearing that 
the ideal Boston is farther off than Mr. Bellamy has dreamed 



on the Coming Civilization. 381 

it. It may be well to experiment in this direction ; but any 
steps should be slowly and cautiously taken. 

We are impatient, and — in the sense of a high discon- 
tent with poor conditions — we ought to be impatient, of 
the existence of so many social ills and imperfections. 
During the Middle Ages a great army of children started 
out on an enthusiastic crusade in search of the Holy Land. 
At first they thought it very near. And as each common 
town rose in sight, their hearts beat with eager expectation, 
and they cried out, " Is this Jerusalem ? " And then, wearied 
and sobered, they would start on again for the city that 
they still knew was somewhere, though farther off than 
they had fancied it to be. 

Like these children the human race marches on. It be- 
lieves in the unseen city ; but, in spite of many disappoint- 
ments, it allows itself to be over and over again deluded 
into the belief that the first town caught sight of by any 
enthusiast is the city of its hopes. 

One fundamental fact cannot be too deeply impressed on 
all hearts or kept too constantly in mind. This fact is that 
a perfect building cannot be constructed of imperfect bricks. 
A perfect society cannot be made out of imperfect individ- 
uals. Rearrange them as you please, and so long as the 
materials are defective the defect will appear in the result. 
Forgetting this is the radical error in all those theories 
that propose some short cut to the " Coming Civilization/' 
while men and women are left very much the same as they 
are now. 

Having put up our warning signs, "No passing," at the 
entrances of so many roads, some persons may be inclined 
to think that I regard all of them as cut de sacs, and that 
the only thing left is for us to plod on after the old fashion, 
"content in that station of life in which it has pleased 
Providence to place us," as the Prayer Book has it. But 
no, I hold no opinion of the kind. ISTor have I, on the 
other hand, any pet " City of God " of my own that I expect 
to see suddenly descending out of a magical sky. If there 
is any hope at all in the future, it is the hope that shines 
out of the past. Something, and, I believe, very much, is 
possible, if only people will stop merely dreaming, and, in 
the light of established principles, will go to work. 

In the first place, I do not at all believe in the laissez- 
faire theory, in letting things take their own way. Under 



382 The Effects of Evolution 

the working of " natural selection," all life lifted and ad- 
vanced, until man appeared. But since then, something 
else has appeared; artificial or human selection has been 
at work. I am well aware that it is a matter of definition, 
and that, in one sense, what a man does is as natural as is 
that which is done by a horse or an elephant. But, to avoid 
confusion of thought, we call that which has in it the ele- 
ment of human purpose artificial, as opposed to that which 
takes place apart from the control or guidance of the human 
will. There are many famous scientific men who seem to 
me curiously illogical here. They seem to have a sort of 
blind worship for what they call "natural" law, and appear 
to regard it as a holy ark that the profane intermeddler 
must not lay his hands upon. And, at the same time, they 
know, as well as the rest of us do, that from the day when 
the first man-like creature tore off the limb of a tree to be 
used as a club, every step in civilization has been a step 
artificially created and taken. That is, "human" selection 
has always been at work modifying the results of " natural " 
selection. If a man can change the course of a mountain 
torrent, and prevent its devastating a bit of ground that 
human selection has turned into a garden, why should he 
sit passively still and let any natural force override him, 
provided he has the skill and power to prevent it ? At 
any rate, all the civilization we have has been the result of 
human interference in modifying the working of natural 
forces, and so turning them to the accomplishment of 
humanly thought-out consequences. 

We are familiar with the fact that living forms always 
tend to become adjusted to their environment. And it is 
true that the lower life-forms are practical^ helpless in 
the hands of the forces and conditions that environ them. 
A bird will build a better nest if you furnish him a better 
place and better materials. But while man also tends to 
become adjusted to his environment, he has the power of 
thinking out and creating a better environment, and so, in- 
directly, of lifting his average life to higher levels. To do 
just this is the work of that human selection that seeks to 
create a better civilization. 

I believe, then, that Prof. Lester F. Ward is right in 
the main idea of his "Dynamic Sociology." He thinks 
that man has at last reached the point where he can delib- 



on the Coming Civilization. 383 

erately plan out and create for himself a higher type of 
civilization. 

Now, what is that ideal condition of the world of which 
all lovers of their kind must sometimes dream and which 
they always desire ? In broad outline, it can be indicated 
as a condition of things in which all persons shall be re- 
leased from over-drudgery, and shall have both leisure and 
means to develop and gratify the higher wants of their 
natures. This would necessarily mean, and would carry 
along with it, the elimination from human society of nearly 
all its present disease and vice and crime. For most of 
these are the natural accompaniments of our present imper- 
fect stage of civilization. 

In order to do this, more wealth must be created. For 
we have already seen that an equal division of all that 
now exists would not be enough for our purpose. To do 
this would seem to demand a more exacting toil on the 
part of everybody, instead of setting people free to culti- 
vate themselves into a capacity for living human lives. 
But this I believe will appear to be a fallacy, and that our 
hope of sufficient leisure is not an unreasonable one. 

In the barbaric ages, men had few wants, and those 
almost exclusively of an animal kind. And so long as man 
is compelled to work all or most of his working hours for 
mere subsistence, he can be only an animal who hunts or 
fights for his prey, tears and devours it, and then goes to 
sleep, only to go through the same routine another day. 
He must develop the mental, the moral, the spiritual, the 
social, in him, before we can call him civilized. To this 
end he must have time and means. To this hour in the 
world's history, it is only in so far as time and means have 
been gained, and in the case of those who have gained it, 
that any civilization has been attained. 

Here, then, we face the problem. It is along this road, 
if at all, that mankind must go. Can they go ? Is it an 
open road ? Or, if not open now, can we open it ? I be- 
lieve we can. I believe this old earth is capable of sustain- 
ing an ideal civilization — one as fair as the fairest that any 
most enthusiastic dreamer has dreamed. And I believe 
this wondrous race of ours, that has accomplished so much, 
is capable of realizing it. But it must be by facing facts, 
and by working along the lines of existing laws and forces. 



384 The Effects of Evolution 

There is no magic about it, no short cnt, no royal road. It 
is not to be learned in <•' six short and easy lessons." 

Those who are already educated and rich and well-off 
should remember two things. First, no true man can be 
truly happy while so large a part of the world is unhappy. 
For our happiness we need to cultivate general happiness. 
And, in the next place, no house is safe, however well- 
furnished, and however gay be the company within, so long 
as the foundations are insecure. And the foundations of 
our society to-day are the millions who will not be slaves 
again, and who cannot go on to a manly and prosperous 
content without our aid. Preach to them only the doctrine 
of quiet, and take on the airs of masters, and their answer 
is dynamite. They cannot go back, they will not stand 
still ; and so we must, if for no higher motive than our own 
safety, help them to go forward. 

What now can we do ? I have left myself little space 
to tell, and I would need a book to detail and argue it all. 
But since I am only to hint it, I have plenty of time for 
that. If my suggestions are living seeds, they will germi- 
nate after I am done. 

The first thing to be done is this : Society at last recog- 
nizes its right, and it already has the power, and can use 
it, to make knowledge compulsory and universal. No boy 
or girl should be allowed, from this clay, to grow up without 
knowing what kind of a world this is, by what stages hu- 
manity has advanced to where it is to-day, and so, by what 
steps it may be expected to go on to-morrow. Men are 
victims of their conditions, the tools of knaves and other 
fools, because they are ignorant. The race has gained a 
certain accumulated stock of verified knowledge. It is 
this that sets men free and makes them masters of their 
circumstances. This accumulated stock of knowledge, then, 
ought to become the common property of man. This is the 
first thing. 

In the second place, we can do at least a little in the 
way of destroying the present wide-spread monopolies of 
the natural resources of the earth, that can never justly be 
the property of any individual. No man can properly be 
said to own that which he does not make or produce, such, 
for example, as land, mines, water-power, coal-beds, etc. 
But as most of these things are now bound up with addi- 
tions to, or modifications of, other things that are individual 



on the Coming Civilization. 385 

property, they present a practical problem most difficult to 
solve. But, so far as possible, every man ought to have 
access to, and use of, all these things, and so unhampered 
opportunity. 

The third will iake me a little longer to tell. A man 
becomes more a man by as much as his permanent wants 
become more and higher. So long as he wants only food, 
clothing and shelter, he is but a higher kind of animal. As 
his higher' nature unfolds, and he wants books and music 
and art, then only does he become, in the higher sense of 
the word, human. But before he can be developed into 
really wanting these, he must have, at least, some leisure: 
for this kind of culture requires time. Children, then, must 
not be allowed to be put to daily labor, or at any rate, to 
more than half-day work, until they have been properly 
schooled and taught. And not only this, men and women, 
if they are to live, and so maintain, this higher life, must 
have some time to read and think, to breathe the air of art, 
and to listen to music. They must have time to mingle 
with their fellows in what we call society. Is it not these 
higher things that we mean when we speak of living ? 
Take from us our society, our books, our pictures, our stat- 
uary, our music, with all that these imply, and would we 
care much to keep the rest ? If this be so, is not what is 
necessary to the real human life of ourselves necessary to 
all ? In so far as they are men and women, it most certainly 
is. 

If, now, we are wise believers in Evolution, it has taught 
us one thing ; and that is that the world advances not by 
leaps, but by the method of growth. So we shall not expect 
everything, or too much, all at once. If we can take the 
next step, we shall do well. This next step on the part of 
the great army of wage-workers, I believe, with Mr. George 
Gunton, to be shorter hours of daily labor. I incline to 
think that he has wrought out this problem from the point 
of view of political economy. 

Fewer hours of labor would mean the employment of 
the unemployed ; and so the removing of the burden of 
their support from the overloaded shoulders of the workers. 
The more wage-earners there are, the more consumers ; so 
it would cause a widening of the market of the world. With 
ever more and better machinery, along with the education 
of the laborer, and so the increase of his skill, there might. 



386 The Effects of Evolution 

be an immense increase of production, and so increase, in- 
stead of lessening, of wages. With higher education, more 
leisure, and an elevation of popular taste, there would be 
ever less and less of the waste and inefficiency caused by 
vice and crime. 

These steps, then, society is competent to take. I see 
no other way. It must be by education, and so through 
increased mastery of the natural forces on the part of man, 
that the higher life must come. That which lifts' the social 
level, creates in man higher wants, and so stimulates him 
to the production of ever more and more of those things 
in which real wealth consists, to the end that these wants 
may be supplied, — this and this only can help the race on 
to the next step towards the "Coming Civilization." This 
is the lesson of all the past, and here is the prophecy of 
the future. Long and weary has been the way. But if Evo- 
lution teaches anything, it is tireless patience and death- 
less hope. I close, then, with a song I once sung of 

THE PEOPLE. 

Oh, placable and patient race, 

Thy burden bearing through the years ! 

How often marred with grief thy face, 
How oft thine eyes are dim with tears ! 

How patient art thou with thy gods, 

Still framing for them some excuse, 
Bending thy back beneath their rods, 

And turning pain to noble use ! 

How patient art thou with thy kings, 

That rob, and fatten on thy spoils ! 
While each new year new burden brings, 

To bind thee to thy weary toils. 

Be patient still, and labor on ! 

Thy waiting is not all in vain ; 
For, see ! long hours of dark are gone, 

And, east, the night begins to wane. 

Science, man's mighty friend, has bound 
Nature's trained forces, foes no more : 

They stamp their hoofs, and at the sound 
Flies open every once-barred door. 

And through these doors man shall advance, 
And find free course o'er all the earth; 

No more the slave of circumstance, 
But rising to his kingly worth. 



on the Coming Civilization. 387 

He claims his birthright, now, and reigns : 

The Titans that o'er chaos ruled, — 
Lightning and steam, — with giant pains, 

Now run his errands, trained and schooled. 

O People ! once a mass, held down, 

The plaything of the priest and king, 
You yet shall come into your own, 

And to you earth her tribute bring. 

Dethroned, the gods of wrong and hate ; 

Dethroned, the old-time kingly power ; 
Dethroned, the priesthood's selfish state ; 

Reason enthroned, then comes your hour ! 

The spelling-book shall be the key 

To thrust back in the lock of fate 
The musty bolts of destiny, 

And bid you enter now, though late. 

But, on God's dial-plate of time, 

'Tis never late for him who stands 
Self-centred in a trust sublime, 

With mastered force and thinking hands. 

The world, then, all before you lies : 
The stars fight for you ; and there waits 

A future where bold enterprise 

Flings open wide the long-shut gates. 



388 The Effects of Evolution 



ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. 

Me. Thaddetjs B. Wakeman: — 

My first duty is to thank the speaker of the evening for his 
scholarly and eloquent address. Evolutionists are a unit as to the 
ideals toward which they would strive. The only difference is as 
to the methods by which we can take advantage of the possibili- 
ties of evolution. Of the many admirable points in the lecture, 
that emphasizing the importance of the human will in solving the 
sociological problem seems to me the most significant. Spencer 
and his school have given us the idea that evolution is a mechani- 
cal process, independent of the moulding power of human effort. 
I agree with the speaker in the main, but was he not a little pre- 
mature in putting up "No Thoroughfare" on the various roads 
by which people are striving to remedy the ills of society ? Is not 
his own panacea of the eight-hour law and the education of the 
laborer also inadequate, equally with Georgeisni ? I believe the 
true remedy is to be found to some extent in Nationalism, and 
also in a modified form of Co-operation. I think the way is to be 
found in the public administration of business, or State Socialism 
adapted to this country. Evolution indicates that the co-operative 
attempts of the people in the way of governmental business, the 
post-office, the conduct of war, etc., are to be followed by a great 
Co-operative Commonwealth. Professor Gunton's plan would be 
at best an application of the feudal system to industry. It leaves 
the worker in his condition as a hireling, and does not open up 
for him a career of his own. The accumulation of wealth is a 
social necessity. The only question is, who shall be the monopo- 
list ? Shall we have one monopoly, controlled by Uncle Sam, for 
the benefit of all his people, or many monopolies, controlled by 
Jay Gould, the Standard Oil Company, etc., in their own interest ? 
The road indicated by Mr. Bellamy, in "Looking Backward," 
seems to me to be the right one — the one we might travel. 

Mr. John A. Taylor: — 

I think we have never heard a clearer or more comprehensive 
discussion of the various theories of social reform than has been 
given by the lecturer. Evolution has accomplished everything in 



on the Coming Civilization. 389 

the world that has heen for good. The remedies of the philoso- 
phers have almost always failed when they have been applied. 
The gentleman who last spoke has indicated his belief that the 
paternal form of government will accomplish the rectification of 
all social mal-adjnstment. Bnt this is contrary to Spencer's well- 
known philosophy as to the limitations of governmental interfer- 
ence. It has been said that Herbert Spencer's discovery of the 
universal law of social evolution was as notable as Newton's dis- 
covery of the law of gravitation. Spencer sought to formulate a 
law of universal application, which would make it possible for us 
to predicate the future tendencies of society. At this last meet- 
ing of the Association for the year, it will not be inappropriate to 
characterize the work of Mr. Spencer very briefly. It was in this 
country that he first received recognition and substantial support. 
If he could know how greatly he has helped thinking minds all 
ovej this country, by putting into the thought of the world a great 
principle which shall endure forever, he would perhaps appreciate, 
to a larger degree even than he does now, the breadth and great- 
ness of his life-work. Spencer is the master-mind of this genera- 
tion, and our work will fail of its best results if it does not lead 
us to a more thoughtful study of his works. 

Pkofessok Geobge Gunton : — 

I have never heard a lecture which had such a clear and firm 
grasp on the problems involved in the future evolution of society. 
I was particularly pleased with the lecturer's assertion that our 
study of the past is to furnish us with our guide-board for the 
future. Whenever a "panacea" is presented to us, we should ask 
whether it is in line with the progress of the past. I agree that 
"No Thoroughfare" is the proper inscription to write on most of 
the social guide-boards. I have just finished reading Mr. Bellamy's 
book, "Looking Backward," and also his article in the Nationalist, 
telling how he came to write the book. He says at first he had 
no interest in the subject, beyond the desire to write an interest- 
ing book, but as he went on his scheme evolved, — developed out 
of his inner consciousness, so to speak. This shows the necessa- 
rily crude and impractical character of the thought of the book. 
Mr. Wakeman and I agree that we have to obey evolution. But 
which way does the evolutionary current set ? Always away from 
paternal government and toward Individualism. If this is true, — 
and it can be doubted by no careful student of history, — we cer- 
tainly have a right to label Mr. Bellamy's scheme, "No Thorough- 



390 The Effects of Evolution 

fare." All improvements in social conditions must come through 
the direct action of the people, and not be concocted for them. 
Society cannot be perfect unless you have perfect social units. All 
experience points in the direction indicated by Mr. Savage — that 
of giving the laborer fewer hours of labor, and thus permitting 
him to work out his own salvation. 

Me. William Potts : — 

I have not read "Looking' Backward," I am sorry to say, and 
therefore cannot attempt to criticise its theory of social reform, 
except indirectly, and in a very general way. But I have had 
some experience with the public management and managers of 
affairs — all I want ; and if we are coming to a time when all pri- 
vate affairs are to be managed by public officials, I shall be glad 
to try my chances* in some other planet where affairs are still 
under private management. In regard to the future, let us spec- 
ulate as we will, but let us be conservative in action. ISTo perma- 
nent change in individual character or social conditions is ever 
made suddenly or by means of a long step, all at once. The one 
thing that is perfectly sure in social evolution is that each one of 
us is to do the best work he can do. We are to reform society by 
patient, persistent, Christian work and influence, one man acting 
upon another. 

Dr. Robert G. Eccles: — 

Mr. Wakeman considers that the human will is the great thing 
in social evolution. But does lie not know that the human will is 
liable to go every way, including the wrong way ? While it goes 
one way, the great evolutionary forces of nature may be going 
another. The human will was a great force in the Spanish Inqui- 
sition — but then it went the wrong way. Constant progress is in 
part the result of the action of the human will, but that is not the 
most efficient factor. Again, evolution does not necessarily mean 
seriality, does not mean constant progress in one direction. In- 
stead of reaching toward unity, evolution makes for diversity. 
Under State-Socialism the tendency to social advancement would 
be retarded or altogether checked, for all social and individual 
advancement depends upon the increase of wealth in the commu- 
nity. There will be a constant tendency to increase wealth and 
wages where there is encouragement for men to go into business 
for themselves, because the more employers, the more competition 
there will be among them for the services of the workingmen. 



on the Coming Civilization. 391 

Even under our present system, wealth is largely devoted to the 
general good. No man can do what he will with his wealth. 

Rev. John W. Chad wick: — 

The following letter was read from Mr. Chadwick, who was 
absent in Boston at the time of the meeting : 

Mb. Ellsworth Waesee, Brooklyn, May 24, 1889. 

Secretary Ethical Association : 
My Dear Sir: I am very sorry that your gain in Mr. Savage and 
his lecture is my eternal loss, as I am obliged to go to Boston and 
preach for him. This is a miserable Castor Pollux kind of an 
arrangement, which I trust ministers of religion will not be sub- 
jected to when the good times predicted by Edward Henry-George- 
Most-Pentecost Bellamy have come to pass. I should like to be 
in Brooklyn to hear Mr. Savage and to say a few words afterward 
expressive of my satisfaction in the Winter's work of the Ethical 
Association, and especially of my sense of obligation to Dr. Janes, 
to whom, I am sure I may say, without disparagement of any, we 
are more indebted than to any other person for the inception and 
successful conduct of the course. If the speaking and printing of 
the lectures marked our complete accomplishment it would still 
be considerable, but I am bound to believe that they have stimu- 
lated many to such reading and study as must be pursued before 
the doctrine of Evolution can be vitally appropriated. I am also 
bound to believe that we have done nothing for science which we 
have not also done for religion, which is the poetry of science and 
of ethics. 

Yours very truly, John W. Chadwick. 

Letters were also read from members of the Sociological Section 
of the Natural History Society of Birmingham, England, and 
James Grosclaude, C. E., of Paris, France, expressing sympathy 
with the aims and work of the Association. 

Mb. Savage replied briefly to his critics, defending the views 
expressed in his essay. 



Evolution. 393 



INDEX. 

Abbot, Dr. Francis E., on the new teleology, 330. 

Abiogenesis, 125-126. 

Agassiz, Prof. Louis, 20; his Essay on Classification, 36; his opposition to 
Darwinism, 40, 42, 173; his laws of evolution, 141. 

Agnosticism, Herbert Spencer's relation to, 16 ; religious attitude of, 22 ; of 
science, 107, 133 ; compared with meta- gnosticism, 226 ; in theological evolu- 
tion, 240, 250 ; compared with materialism, 350 ; the synthesis of materialism 
and spiritualism, 365. 

Allen, Prof. Jerome, on Christianity and evolution, 33S, 330. 

Altruism and egoism, their relation to conduct, 215, 264-268, 272. 

Anaplotherium — a link in animal evolution, 305. 

Anarchy, as a theory of social reform, 372. 

Animals and Plants'under Domestication, 31. 

Animism, 238. 

Anthropomorphism, its place in theological evolution, 245, 251. 

Appleton, D. & Company, 7, 18 note, 20, 55 note. 

Aquinas, Thomas, 281. 

Arcadia, Sidney's, 360. 

Aristotle, Herbert Spencer compared with, 3 ; on organic remains in the rocks, 
01, 236, 281 ; would not have regarded evolution as a philosophy, 353. 

Arnold, Matthew, 10 ; his depreciation of material progress, 358. 

Artificial breeding, 148, 153, 306. 

Artificial selection, Darwin's work on, 31 ; in vegetal evolution, 128-130; in an- 
imal evolution, 148-151, 153, 155 ; in cotton-culture, 171 ; as a proof of evolu- 
tion, 306 ; in social evolution, 382. 

Aryan mythology, in theological evolution, 240. 

Assyrian pantheon, 241. 

Astronomy, as related to evolution, 55-74, 345. 

Atheism and evolution, 43, 227-228, 250. 

Australian fauna, illustrative of evolution, 301. 

Babylonian Religion, in theological evolution, 241. 

Bain, Alexander, on mental evolution, 102 ; his definition of will, 276. 

Baring-Gould, S., on the origin of monotheism, 243, 244. 

Bathybius, 110, 185. 

Bellamy, Edward, his views criticised, 371-372, 380-3S1. 

Bellows, Henrv S., on social evolution, 220. 

.Bible, the, anil evolution, 70-80, 01, 104-107, 143-145, 205, 200, 223-224, 225-227, 
321-322. 

Binet, Alfred, on micro-organisms, 184-185, 108 note. 

Biology, Darwin's works on, 31-30; as related to geology, 07-101; in vegetal 
evolution, 111-136; in animal evolution, 145-157; in human evolution, 
161-175; as related to psychosis, 184-187; as related to social evolution, 
205-212,216-223,228; as related to moral evolution, 250-262, 266, 268; its 
proofs of evolution, 280-316. 

Blanchard, Dudley, on mechanical evolution, 365. 

Botany, as related to evolution, 111-136, 345. 

Boughton, William H., on Charles Darwin, 40. 

Braun, Dr. Karl, on planetary evolution, 62. 

Bruno, Giordano, on pre-existence, 275. 

Buffon, on animal classification, 36. 

Burton, Capt. O. F., on human evolution, 175; on the Unknowable, 100. 

Catagenesis, 186. 

Chadwick, Rev. John W., on Herbert Spencer, 21; on Charles Darwin, 25-46; 
on theological evolution, 252; in reply to Prof. Davidson, 282; on Evolution 
and Religion, 310-337 ; on the work of the Ethical Association, 301. 

Christianity and Evolution, 205, 215, 223, 224-227, 338-340. 

Chambers, Robert, on use as affecting structural changes, 140. 

Coakley, Prof. George W., his illustrations of Laplace's hypothesis, 55 note, 56, 
57, 58. 

Coan, Dr. T. Munson, on human and vegetal evolution, 171. 



394 Index. 

Communism, as a social ideal, 37G-3T7. 

Comte, Auguste, his relation to the philosophy of evolution, 343, 349-350. 

Consciousness, as a factor in evolution, 152, 166-169, 184-194, 197-198; its testi- 
mony as to physical and mental phenomena, 350-354, 365-366 ; dependent on 
a brain and nerves, 352. 

Contract society, 214. 

Co-operation, industrial, as a social ideal, 279, 378-380, 388. 

Cope, Prof. Edward D., on the evolution of the horse, 100; his " Neo-Lamarck- 
ism," 155; on the descent of man, 161-170, 175; on catagenesis, 186; on tna 
will as a factor in evolution, 192. 

Copernican astronomy, as related to theology, 321. 

Coral polyps, in geological evolution, 92. 

Coral reefs, Structure and Distribution of, 29. 

Creation, the Bible account as compared with evolution, 46, 70, 79-80, 91, 143, 169. 
205, 209, 223, 324-329. 

Cross and Self-Fertilization of Plants, 31. 

Darwin, Charles Robert, his relation to the evolution philosophy, 12, 13, 22, 
343 ; his life and work, 25-46 ; poem on Darwin, 47 ; his mental greatness, 49 ; 
recognition of his work in Holland, 50 ; on climbing plants, 121 ; on natural 
selection, 128, 264, 289; on orchids, 129, 130; on pangenesis, 129; on fertiliza- 
tion of clover, 131; imperfections of his theory, 141, 142, 150, 151, 153, 164; 
his letter on animal remains in S. A., 157 ; on descent of man, 164 ; on belief 
in God, 234 note ; on primitive man, 261, 262 ; on origin of morals, 263 ; on 
human evolution, 295; theological implications of his doctrine, 322-330; his 
idea of creation, in Origin of Species, 324-329 ; on the origin of life, 323- 
329 ; compared with Hegel, 346-348 ; as related to the philosophy of evolution, 
343-348 ; not a student of the mind, 363. 

Darwin, Dr. Erasmus, 25, 27, 32. 

Darwin, Robert Waring, 26. 

Data of Ethics, 13, 195, 259, 269, 270, 274. 

Davidson, Prof. Thomas, on human evolution, 173 ; on anoetic knowledge, 183 ; 
on the evolutionary theory of morals, 281 ; his metaphysics, 331. 

Dawson, Prof. William, on the eozoon canadense, 101. 

Descartes, as related to the evolution philosophy, 343, 346. 

Descent of Man, 31, 34, 40, 41 ; lecture by Prof. E. D. Cope, 161-170, 175: Dr. T. 
Munson Coan on, 171 ; Dr. Henry S. Drayton on, 172 ; Prof. Thomas David- 
son on, 173; Dr. Robert G. Eccles on, 173"; as related to morals, 261, 263, 302. 

Descriptive Sociology, 7 note. 

Design, doctrine of, as affected by evolution, 143. 

Development Hypothesis, 5, 12, 33. 

Discovered links, 302. 

Divine agency in evolution, 45, 46, 103, 133, 134. 143, 154, 156, 205, 280. 

Doornik, Dr. J. E., on evolution, 50. 

Drayton, Dr. Henry S., on human evolution, 172. 

Duration of geological periods, 101. 

Dutch scholars oii"Darwinism, 50. 

Dyer, Prof. W. T. Thistleton, on distinctions between plants and animals, 122. 

Dynamic Sociology, 382. 

Earthquakes, 93, 94. 

Earthworms and Vegetable Mould, 29, 31. 

Eccles, Dr. Robert G., on the nebular hypothesis, 71 ; on vegetal evolution, 136 ; 
on animal evolution, 155 ; on human evolution, 173 ; on the evolution of the 
mind, 179-196, 199 ; on the will as a factor in evolution, 276 ; on the definition 
of life, 283; on proofs of evolution, 315; on the philosophy of evolution, 
364-365 ; on social conditions, 390. 

Education, Spencer's work on, 15; need of compulsory, 384. 

Effects of Evolution on the Coming Civilization, 369-390. 

Egyptian mythology, 242. 

Embryology, as affecting evolution, 38, 147, 164, 296-298, 311. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, his advocacy of evolution, 32; his definition of virtue, 
257 ; remark on compunctions, 275 ; on the thinker, 287 ; his intuitional phi- 
losophy criticised, 349. 

Environment as affecting development, 146, 156, 165, 171, 266, 275, 283, 289-290, 
300-302, 316. 

Eozoon Canadense, 101. 

Essay on Classification, 36. 

Ethical aspects of Evolution, Mr. Spencer's view, 13-14, 21, 22; Darwin's view, 
41 ; Prof. Cope on, 169 ; Dr. Coan on, 171 ; as related to mental evolution, 
194-196 ; as related to social evolution, 224-225 ; in theological evolution, 244- 



Index. 395 

246; in Judaism, 245, 246, 252, 253; Dr. L. G. Janes on, 25T-280; as compared 
with metaphysical systems, 208-^80, 281-284; Mr. N. C. Parshall on, 312-313; 
Rev. J. W. Chadwick on, 319-320. 
"Evolution, Herbert Spencer's relation to, 3-22 ; Charles Darwin's relation to, 
25-51 ; solar and planetary, 55-75 ; of the earth, 7;)-107 ; of vegetal life, 111- 
136; of animal life, 139-157; of man, 101-175; of the mind, 179-200; of soci- 
ety, 203-230; of theology, 233-253, of morals, 257-284; of industries, 374-375; 
proofs of, 287-316; as related to religious thought, 319-340 ; philosophy of , 
343-366 ; effects of on the coming civilization, 369-390. 

F aye's Hypothesis of planetary evolution, 61-62. 

Fertilization, of plants, 31, 123-125; of orchids, 31; of the rose, 112; of apples, 110. 

Fetishism, in theological evolution, 240, 251. 

Fiske, Prof. John, on Agassiz's Essay on Classification, 36; on mental evolu- 
tion (reference), 180, 182, 18S, 195; on human infancy as affecting moral 
evolution, 262; his definition of will, 276; on evolution and theology, 333; 
on the value of moral beliefs, 337 ; on the relations of mind and matter, 350. 

Foramenifera, 90. 

Force, an ultimate element in the material world, 351 ; not what it appears to 
be, 365. 

Formation of igneous rocks, 93. 

Formation of organic rocks, 88. 

Formation of stratified rocks, 84. 

Forms of Flowers, 31. 

Four great factors of evolution, 289. 

Freedom and necessity, 276, et aeq. 

Gardner, Thomas, on Herbert Spencer, 22 ; on moral evolution, 282. 

Gates, Nelson J., on mental evolution, 198 ; on moral evolution, 282 ; on proofs 
of evolution, 315. 

Geikie, Dr., on Darwin, 29, 30 ; on the age of the earth, 102. 

Geographical distribution, 300-302, 312. 

Geological evolution, 79-107. 

Geological succession, of animals, 97 ; of plants, 120-128. 

Geology, as related to evolution, 296, 311, 345. 

George, Henry, his social philosophy, 377-378. 

Glacial action, 82. 

Gnosticism, in theological evolution, 244. 

Goethe, his advocacy of evolution, 32 ; his mental world, 185 ; on mind and mat- 
ter, 197; his pantheism, 251. 

Golden Rule, as compared with the ethics of evolution, 273. 

Gottheil, Rev. Dr. Gustav, on the Hebrew monotheism, 252. 

Gravitation, as related to cosmic evolution, 55-60, 73-74; its cause unknown, 
72-73 ; as related to theological ideas, 321 ; its relation to language, 364. 

Gray, Prof. Asa, on wild roses, 115. 

Greek pantheon, in theological evolution, 241. 

Grosclaude, James, C. E., recognition of his letter to the Ethical Association, 
391. 

Gunton, Prof. George, his eight-hour theory, 285; on social evolution, 389-390; 
Irs theory criticised, 388. 

Guyot, Arnold, on the evolution of the earth, 67. 

HaeckEl, Prof. Ernest, Darwin's confession to him, 40, 42 ; his description 
of Darwin, 44; on certain forms of algse, 122; his mechanical theory of 
the Universe, 133, 329; his theory of the descent of man, 172; on life and 
organization, 185; on embryology, 297; on spontaneous generation, 310; 
his teleology, 329. 

Hamilton, Sir William, his Philosophy of the Unconditioned, 331, 340 ; as re- 
lated to the evolution philosophy, 343. 

Hanson, William, on altruism, 230. 

Harrison, Frederic, his controversy with Herbert Spencer, 9 ; his idea of relig- 
ion, 334. 

Hawaian islanders, effect of civilization on, 271. 

Hawley, Frederick B., on evolution of theology, 251. 

Hebrew monotheism, as related to theological evolution, 244-247 ; to Positivism, 
251 ; to theism and ethics, 245, 246, 252, 253. 

Hegel, his philosophy compared with Darwin's, 346-348. 

Hehnholtz, on the correlation of forces, 363. 

FEenslow, Prof., Darwin's description of, 27. 

Heredity, as affecting evolution, 147, 150, 151, 154, 289, 290. 



396 Index. 

Herschel, Sir John, his theory of the luminous sun-spots, 65; of the form of 
the universe, 67-68. 

Holbrook, Dr. Martin L., on vegetal evolution, 135. 

Homology, in animal evolution, 291-292. 

Hooker, Dr., on Herbert Spencer, 9 ; his relation to Darwin's Origin of Spe- 
cies, 30. 

Horse, the evolution of, 38, 98-100, 292. 

Humboldt, William von, his political philosophy compared with Herbert 
Spencer's, 14. 

Hume, David, 343. 

Huxley, Prof. Thomas H., his defence of Darwin, 40; on the influence of the 
Origin of Species, 42; on Darwin's honesty, 44-45; on the proof of bio- 
logical evolution, 100 ; on organic and inorganic substance, 118 ; on 
micro-organisms, 119 ; on bathybius, 119; evolution no longer an hypoth- 
esis, 304 ; on mind and matter, 350, 366. 

Igneous Rocks, the formation of, 9.3. 

Immortality, evolution's word concerning, 334-33G, 338. 

Industrial evolution, 374-375. 

Infertility of species, 149, 151-153, 155. 

Intuitional philosophy, 349. 

Island life, illustrative of evolution, 98, 156, 301-302. 

James, Prof. William, on mental evolution, 185. 

Janes, Dr. Lewis G., on the philosophical aspects of cosmic evolution, 74; on- 
the evolution of the earth, 79-103 ; on the laws of organic and inorganic 
growth, 136; on the law of population, 172; on mental evolution, 197; on 
Spencer's theory of government, 230; on the personality of the Absolute, 
253 ; on the evolution of morals, 257-280, 283-284, 319-336 ; on Spencer's "Un- 
knowable," 339-340; on the philosophy of evolution, 365. 

Japan, evolution in, 50. 

Judaism, as related to evolution, 244-245, 252; as related to Christianity, 246, 
339-340. 

Kant, Emanuel, his conception of the ding an sich, 182 ; on the moral law, 
265; on good and evil, 273; on the will, 277; the evolution -philosophy not 
derived from him, 343; his Critique of Pure Reason, 343, 346. 

Kennan, George, his testimony as to Spencer's writings in Siberia, 6. 

Krakatoa, the volcano of, 94. 

Lamarck, anticipated by Dr. Erasmus Darwin, 26 ; his advocacy of evolution. 
32 ; his theory of use as affecting development, 149-150, 155 ; importance of" 
his hypothesis, 164; its correctness, 165; its revival by Prof . Cope, 174; a 
forerunner of the evolution philosophy, 343. 

Language, its brain-convolution found in anthropoid apes, 162 ; evidences that 
primitive man was deficient in speech, 164; its evolution, 262, 264, 363; it 
differentiates man from the lower animals, 262, 312 ; the connecting link 
between mind and matter, 363-364. 

Laplace, his theory of solar and planetary evolution, 56-60 ; rejected in part 
by Faye, 62; the theory not wholly satisfactory, 71; objections to it, 73; a. 
forerunner of evolution, 343. 

Law of conduct, as formulated by the evolution philosophy, 272. 

Laws, natural and divine, 133. 

Laws of evolution, 141, et seq. 

Le Conte, Prof. Joseph, on the subsidence of the earth's crust, 93; on geolog- 
ical evolution 95-96 ; on the effect of astronomical and geological studies, 
102-103; on spontaneous generation, 140; his definition of evolution, 141; 
his formulation of its laws, 141 ; his judgment of Romanes' theory, 151 ; on 
the influence of natural and sexual selection, 290 ; on artificial and natural 
selection, 306 ; on spirit immortality, 330. 

Leibniz, his doctrine of pre-existence,*275. 

Lewes, George Henry, on the spinal cord as a seat of consciousness, 193; on 
the interdependence of organic and mental forces, 363. 

Linnreus, Darwin's acquaintance with his svstem, 26; his basis of classifica- 
tion, 36. 

Locke, John, 343. 

Looking Backward, 371-372, 388. 

Lotze, Herman, his doctrine of pre-existence, 275. 

Loves of the Plants, 26. 

Lubbock, Sir John, on the intelligence of the ant, 172 ; on ancestor-worship, 235- 

Lyell, Sir Charles, compared with Darwin, 29 ; his doctrine of continuity, 30 ;, 
his relation to the Origin of Species, 30; his endorsement of Darwin, 40^ 



Index. 397 

on the gradual character of geological changes, 95 ; on the age of Niagara 
Falls, 101 ; his theories as related to the philosophy of evolution, 345. 

Maine, Sir Heset, on ancient society, 214. 

Malthus, his theory of population reviewed by Herbert Spencer, 21 ; as related 
to Darwin's work, 21. 

Man, his origin and descent, 40-42, 161-175 ; his age upon the earth, 163 ; his 
mental evolution, 179-200 ; his associated life, 203-230 ; his theological devel- 
opment, 233-253; his moral development, 257-284; his physical imperfec- 
tions as related to evolution, 174-175 299-300. 

Mansel, Dean, his doctrine of the Absolute, 249; his philosophy as compared 
with that of Herbert Spencer, 250 note, 331 , 340. 

Marriage, as related to social evolution, 210-214 ; as related to moral evolution, 
263-265 ; its earliest form, 204 note ; its order of development, 374. 

Marsh, Prof. Othniel C, on fossil remains, 98 ; on the evolution of the horse, 
98-100 ; his discoveries of fossil birds, 305. 

Marsupials, their place in the order of animal evolution, 161, 304. 

Martineau, Harriet, 331. 

Materialism, as related to the evolution philosophy, 169, 350-354; compared 
with spiritualism, 354-366. 

Matter andspirit, what we know of them, 133, 109 ; their indestructibility, 180- 
182; their relation to the Unknowable, 133-181, 350-353; their relation to 
consciousness, 365. 

Maudsley, Dr., on the seat of sensation in the brain, 193; his materialism, 360. 

Mechanical inventions and civilization, 35G-359, 365. 

Mental evolution in Man, 234 note. » 

Merwin, Prof. Almon G., on mental evolution, 198. 

Meta-gnosticism, 225-227. 

Metamorphosis, proofs of evolution from, 298. 

Metaphysics, as related to science, 197, 199 ; as applied to theology, 248-250 ; the 
metaphysical theory of morals, 258-259, 273-276 ; as bearing upon the phi- 
losophy of evolution, 344-349. 

Meyer, on correlation of forces, 363. 

Mill, John Stuart, his definition of Matter, 197 ; his distrust of metaphysics, 281. 

Miller, Hugh, his attempt to reconcile the Bible and geology, 104. 

Mimicry, proofs of evolution from, 308. 

Mind, as related to life, 134 ; its correlation with material conditions, 169, 173, 
174, 182 ; its evolution, 179-200 ; is it a function of matter ? 350-354. 

Missing links, 101, 149, 291, 302. 

Monism in philosophy, 75, 247, 365. 

Montgomery, GeorgeEdgar, his poem on Darwin, 47. 

Morals, Evolution of, 257 : 284, 374. 

Moral science, the nature of, 268, et seq. 

Moral sense, the, 312. 

Morehouse, Rev. D. W., on Christianity and evolution, 339. 

Morphology, proofs of evolution irom^ 296. 

Morris, William, his socialistic ideas, 371. 

Mosaic account of creation, 79-80, 104, 107. 

Muller, Johannes, his adhesion to Darwinism, 42. 

Muller, Max, his doctrine of a primitive monotheism, 244. 

Mythology, in theological evolution, 240, 

Nebular Hypothesis, 55. 

Newton, Sir Isaac, his discovery of gravitation, 321, 345. 

Nichols, Starr Hoyt, on the philosophy of evolution, 343-361, 366. 

Obligation, the sense of, in evolutionary morals, 258, 265, 267, 272-278. 

Order of geological succession, 97. 

Organic and inorganic life, 118-121, 136. 

Organic rocks, the formation of, 88-93. 

Origin of duty, 267. 

Origin of Species, when published, 12, 29; when commenced, 22; its orderly 
symmetry, 27 ; an epoch-making book, 31 ; its theory explained, 32-39, 128- 
131 ; its eft'ect,40 ; imperfections in its theory, 151, 164 ; the views of critics, 302. 

Origin of the Fittest, 100 note. 

Origin of variations, 165-166. 

Over-legislation, Spencer's opinion of, 5, 14-15. 

Owen, Prof., on the Australian mammalia, 304. 

Pangenesis, Darwin's theory of, 129-131. 
Pantheism, in theological evolution, 247-250. 



398 Index. 

Parshall, Nelson C, on proofs of evolution, 287-314. 

Perrin, Raymond S., Ms criticism of Mr. Spencer, 353; on the philosophy of 
evolution, 362-364. 

Philosophy of evolution, 343-366; a vital, not a mechanical philosophy, 362. 

Plato, compared with Spencer, 3; on organic remains in rocks, 91 ; his philos- 
ophy recent, 236; had no glimpse of evolution, 343; his idealism, 356; his 
ideal republic, 358, 369. 

Pliny, on organic remains in rocks, 91. 

Population, the theory of, Spencer's essay on, 5, 20 ; Malthus on, 21 ; Dr. Ray- 
mond on, 148 ; the law briefly explained, 172-173 ; further discussion of the 
theory, 208-212; as related to morals, 260-261, 263-264. 

Positivism, as related to cosmic speculations, 74-75 ; its nlace in theological 
evolution, 250-251. 

Potts, William, on the evolution of vegetal life, 111-134; on theories of social 
reform, 390. 

Powell, Major, on human evolution and natural selection, criticised by Prof. 
Cope, 170. 

Present condition of the earth's interior, 83. 

Primitive condition of the earth's surface, 80. 

Principles of Psychology, the basis of Spencer's philosophy, 5 ; published be- 
fore the Origin of Species, 12; it? doctrine of the Unknowable, 181 ; its 
doctrine of sense-perception, 188, 189 ; the parallelism of mental and physi- 
cal processes, 190; the psychology of ethics, 195, 266; the knowableness of 
mind, 199. 

Principles of Sociology, the preparation for it, 203-204; difficulty in the sub- 
ject, 204; society an organifen, 217, 222; social evolution, 228; its bearings 
on theological evolution, 237-240. 

Proctor, Richard A ., his conception of the form of the universe, 68 ; his theory 
of cosmic evolution, 72. 

Progress and Poverty, 377. 

Proofs of Evolution, 287-316 ; from geology, 290 ; from morphology, 291 ; from em- 
bryology, 296 ; from metamorphosis, 298 ; from rudimentary organs, 298 ; from 
geographical distribution, 300; from discovered links, 302; from artificial 
breeding, 306 ; from reversion, 307 ; from mimicry, 309 ; from the fact of con- 
tinuity, 315-316; in sociology, 316; their axiomatic character, 315. 

Prophetic types, 146. 

Psychic Life of Micro-organisms, 184, 19S note. 

Psychology (see "Principles of Psychology"). 

Pythagoras, on organic remains in rocks, 91. 

Raymond, Dr. Rossiter W., on the evolution of animal life, 139-154. 

Reece, Benjamin, on sociological evidences of evolution, 316. 

Religion and science, Spencer's discussion of their relationship, 17 ; Rev. J. W. 
Chadwick on, 42, 43, 45-46, 319-337 ; Dr. L. G. Janes on, 79-80 ; William Potts 
on, 132-134; Dr. R. W. Raymond on, 142-145, 146, 154; Dr. R. G. Eccles on, 
156 ; James A. Skilton on, 205, 209, 223-227 ; Nelson C. Parshall on, 287-289, 
313-314: Starr H. Nichols on, 344-349; Rev. Minot J. Savage on, 370. 

Religion of humanity, 251-253. 

Religion of Philosophy, 353. 

Reversion, proofs of evolution from, 307. 

Rhizopod, character of, 304. 

Ridenour, Professor William B., on vegetal evolution, 135. 

Rig- Veda, 242. 

Romanes, Dr. George J., on Darwin's work and character, 13 ; his contribution 
to Darwinism, 151-152 ; on the " post-Darwinians," 164 ; defects in his theory 
of mental evolution, 185 ; on the origin of religious ideas, 234 note; on the 
psychic difference between men and brutes, 235 note. 

Roman pantheon, in theological evolution, 241. 

Rosmini-Serbati, on pre-existence, 275. 

Rudimentary organs, 37-38, 29S. 

Ruskin, John, his views on government, 22. 

Sampson, Z. Sidney, on social evolution, 228 ; on theological evolution, 233-250. 
Savage, Rev. Minot J., on the change of front of the universe, 258 ; on evolution 

and the coming civilization, 369-386; his poem on " The People," 386-387. 
Scandinavian mythology, in theological evolution, 242. 
Schurmann, Professor,"in criticism of Kant's ethics, 277. 
Seneca, on fossils found in rocks, 91. 

Sensation and memory, as factors of consciousness, 166-169. 
Serviss, Garrett P., on solar and planetary evolution, 55-70, 336. 



Index. 399 

Sexual selection, Darwin's hypothesis of, 31-41 ; its place in evolution, 148, 289; 
how it operates, 290 ; in mimicry, 308-309. 

Skilton, James A., on Herbert Spencer, 19-21 ; on vegetal evolution, 135 ; on evo- 
lution of society, 203-227. 

Social Statics, when published, 5 ; Mr. Spencer's dissatisfaction with it, 5, 20, 
229 ; principle set forth in it, 230. 

Socialism, 380. 

Societary evolution, 203-230. 

Society an organism, 217, 278, and note. 

Sociological Section of Birmingham, Eng., Nat. Hist. Society, letter from, re- 
cognized, 391. 

Sociology, Principles of (see "Principles of Sociology"). 

Solar aha planetary evolution, 55-75. 

Special senses, evolution of, 186. 

Spencer Herbert, his life and works, 3-22 ; letter from, 19 ; the most notable ad- 
vocate of evolution before Darwin, 32 ; his early essay on development, 33 ; 
his reception of Darwin's Origin of Species, 40 ; his sociological tables, 139 ; 
his contribution to the theory of evolution, 142 ; relation of his philosophy 
to the doctrine of the correlation of forces, 180 ; his psychology, 181, 18C, 187, 
188, 189, 190, 199; doctrine of the Unknowable, 181, 249, 250 note, 251, 331-334, 
350-353,364-305; his criticism of Romanes, 185; his ethics, 195, 259 -261, 266, 
268-280; his sociology 203, 204, 217-223, 228, 229,230; on the temporary 
nature of government, 230; on ancestor- worship, 235, 237-239; on myth- 
making, 240; his definition of life, 266 note; on design, 312; his religious 
views criticised, 329-334; his philosophy, 348, 350, 353; his doctrine of the 
interdependency of mind and matter, 363. 

Spencer, Rev. Thomas, 4. 

Spiritualism and materialism compared, 354- 365. 

Spontaneous generation, 125-1^0, 140, 199, 309 - 310, 315. 

State socialism, judged by evolution, 380-381. 

Stevens, Prof. W. Le Conte, on geological evolution, 104-107. 

Stratified rocks, formation of, 84. 

Study of Sociology, 194, 203, 229. 

Sympathetic origin of altruistic feeling, 194-195, 267. 

Taylor, John A., on the evolution of society, 229; on the effects of evolu- 
tion on civilization, 388-389. 

Tennyson, Alfred, his glorification of war, 360. 

Teutonic mythologies, in theological evolution, 242. 

Theism, as related to evolution, 16-17, 22, 46, 103, 107, 133-134, 143, 154, 156-157, 
216, 228, 233-253. 

Theologv, Evolution of, 233-253. 

Theory of population, 5, 20, 21, 148, 172-173, 208-212, 260-261, 263-264. 

Thompson, Daniel Greenleaf , on Herbert Spencer, 3-18. 

Thomson, Sir William, his theory of the meteoric origin of life, 169. 

Tolstoi, Count Lyof N., his social ideal, 370-371, 373, 378. 

Transcendentalism, as related to evolution, 327, 346-347. 

Treviranus, an early advocate of evolution, 32. 

Tyndall, Prof. John, his intimacv with Herbert Spencer, 8 ; on matter and life, 
310. 

Unknowable, Spencer's doctrine of, 16-17, 22; the doctrine criticised, 49-50, 
199, 227,350-353; the principle, as stated by William Potts, 133; by Dr. 
Eccles, 181-182,390; by Z. S. Sampson, 249-250; as related to religion and 
science, 331-334; to philosophy, 350-353, 364; the philosophical basis of 
monism, 365. 

Uniformity, the doctrine of, 95, 344-346. 

Utopia, More's, 369. 

Van dek Broek, Prof. T. H., his advocacy of evolution in Holland, 51. 

Van der Weyde, Dr. P. H., on Darwin, 50-51 ; on the nebular hypothesis, 73 ; on 
Darwin's letter, 157 ; on physics and metaphysics, 283. 

Variations, artificial, 33; as stated by Darwin, 35; in plant-life, 115-118; in ani- 
mal life, 147-14S, 151-154; origin 6f, 104-106. 

Vedas, 242. 

Vegetable mould, the formation of, 29. 

Vegetal life, evolution of, 111-136. 

Virchow, Prof., his opposition to Darwinism, 173. 

Vestiges of Creation, 32, 51, 

Vogt, Prof. Carl, on vegetal evolution, 131 ; on missing links, 305. 

Volcanic Islands. 29. 



400 Index. 

Volcanoes, their action in geological evolution, 93-94; phenomena at Krakatoa, 

94. 
Voltaire, on organic remains in rocks, 91. 
Von Hartmann, Prof. Edouard, on human evolution, 172. 
Voyage of the Beagle, 28. 

Wake, C. Staniland, on evolution of morality, 264. 

"Wakeman, Thaddeus B., on theological evolution, 251 ; on social evolution, 388. 

Wallace, Alfred Russel, his relations with Darwin and discovery of natural 
selection, 30-31 ; his difference from Darwin, 34 ; on island-life, 301-302 (com- 
pare p. 156). 

Ward, Prof. Lester F., his Dynamic Sociology, 382-383. 

Wedgwood, Josiah, 27. 

Weismann's theory of descent, 166. 

Wilson, Prof., on the universality of evolution, 306 ; on degeneration, 308 

Wood, Rev. J. 6., on flint in vegetal structures, 121. 

Wright, Rev. Merle St. Croix, on evolution and religion, 338. 

Youmans, Prof. Edward L., on Herbert Spencer's education, 4; his in- 
fluence in introducing Spencer in America, 7 ; on the Spencer fund, 7 nou ; 
his intimacy with Spencer in America, 9 ; his death, 12 ; his articles on Spen- 
cer in the Popular Science Monthly, 18 note ; his remarks on Spencer's at- 
tempted reconciliation of science and religion, 332. 

Youmans, Miss Eliza A., her judgment of Spencer's psychology, 7 ; Mr. Thomp- 
son's indebtedness to her, 18 note. 

Youmans, Dr. William J., 19. 



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THE SCOPE AND PRINCIPLES OF 
THE EVOLUTION PHILOSOPHY 

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LEWIS G. JANES 

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The eye reads omens where it goes, 
And speaks all languages the rose ; 
And, striving to be man, the worm 
Mounts through all the spires of form. 

— Nature, i., 1. 

The fossil strata show us that Nature began with rudimental forms, and rose 
to the more complex as fast as the earth was fit for their dwelling-place ; and 
that the lower perish as the higher appear. Very few of our race can be said to 
be yet finished men. We still carry sticking to us some remains of the preced- 
ing inferior quadruped organization. . . The age of the quadruped is to go out, 
— the age of the brain and'of the heart is to come in. And if one shall read the 
future of the race hinted in the organic effort of Nature to mount and melior- 
ate, and the corresponding impulse to the Better in the human being, we shall 
dare affirm that there is nothing he will not overcome and convert, until at last 
■culture shall absorb the chaos and gehenna. He will convert the Furies into 
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